18th March, 2024
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
Barcelona thrashed 10-man Atletico Madrid 3-0 away from home on Sunday to move into the second place in La Liga table.
Barcelona are however, eight points adrift of leader Real Madrid with nine matches left to play.
The visitors opened the scoring in the 38th minute of the match. Robert Lewandowski teed up Joao Felix inside the box, and he kept his cool to find the bottom right corner.
Three minutes to the end of the first half, Xavi was shown the red card and sent off, making things difficult of Atletico.
Two minutes after the restart, Raphinha played a neat ball into the path of Lewandowski, who made room for a shot and sent in a low drive which bounced in off the left post to make it 0-2 for Barcelona.
In the 53rd minute, Marcos Llorente collected a rebound and produced a mid-range attempt. The ball went to the bottom left corner, but Marc-Andre ter Stegen kept it out with an amazing save.
Barca made it 0-3 midway into the second half. A perfect lofted pass from Lewandowski found Fermin Lopez, who jumped highest and steered a close-range header into the left side of the goal. His effort was both strong and precise, and Jan Oblak had no chance of stopping it.
Two minutes into added time, The game was interrupted by the referee. He pulled out a red card and sent Nahuel Molina off.