Cruellest week ends in despair for Simeone after Barça’s late flourish | Sid Lowe

There was a little swipe of Diego Simeone’s foot and the ball was in the net. As Conor Gallagher had dashed up the left and provided the pass, Atlético Madrid’s coach accompanied him from the other touchline. As Alex Sørloth provided the finish he did too, black dress shoe joining his striker’s red boot guiding the ball beyond Wojciech Szczesny. 10.32pm on a Sunday at the end of the hardest week and Atlético were 2-0 up against Barcelona, their world healing. The Metropolitano exploded but Simeone didn’t run and shout, didn’t conduct the crowd or clench his fist, didn’t embrace anyone, not this time. Instead, he gazed silently at the sky and looked as if he could cry, a purer portrait of pride.

Soon, he could have been forgiven if the tears were flowing. Twenty-five seconds of football later, Barcelona had scored. Five minutes 25 seconds after that, they scored again. And then, in injury time, Lamine Yamal’s shot hit Reinildo Mandava, changed direction and spun into the net, even a draw taken from Atlético on 91 minutes 25 seconds. When Ferran Torres added a fourth, it was the last touch and too much. For the first time in 14 years and 725 games under Simeone, Atlético had lost from two up. It took 20 minutes. Seven days after losing a goal lead and top spot with Getafe scoring on 88 minutes and 92 minutes. Four days after losing to Madrid on penalties, Julián Alvarez’s spotkick ruled out for touching it twice.

The cruellest week closed the cruellest way. All or nothing, they had said, and it had come up nothing. They had led Getafe and Barcelona late and actually beaten Madrid, but here they were out of Europe and possibly the league too, and like this. “They have an important advantage; we have to be conscious of the reality,” Simeone said afterwards, and the reality showed them four points off Madrid and Barcelona. Hansi Flick’s side have a game in hand too, and were now leaping about at the north end of their stadium where Real Madrid had celebrated before. “I feel bad for them,” Szczesny admitted.

There is a line Simeone has made his own. A cliche and not especially clever, not original, but for ever identified with him: partido a partido. Game by game. Before every game, he says it. All that matters is the next match. Try to get him to talk about anything else and he won’t, to the point of it becoming a running joke. This time, though, was different. At the start of his press conference on Saturday afternoon, the day before Atlético faced Barcelona, the biggest fixture remaining and one that would define the title race and diagnose his team, he began by saying: “Normally, this is where I say ‘Barcelona’, but …”

But, he admitted, the “anger, fury and injustice” he had felt after Wednesday night’s defeat by Real Madrid was still there. Everyone’s minds were still on Alvarez’s penalty, the decision dominating everything. Supporters groups demanded the club try to get it retaken, the evidence of a double touch not convincing everyone, the importance of it convincing even fewer people, and a proper reading of the rules suggesting the decision was wrong. It was the sixth time they had faced Real in Europe, and the sixth time they had been knocked out, each time closer than the last. The pain remained, only one way to diminish it. “From my position, all I can do is work so that the team competes the way it competes,” Simeone said.

And so they did. Barcelona started well – one gorgeous move from Lamine Yamal saw his shot fade just past the far post – but Atlético began to take a bit of control. And just before half-time, within seconds of Robert Lewandowski putting the best opportunity over the bar, a superb goal gave them the lead: Jan Oblak to Reinildo Mandava to Antoine Griezmann to Giuliano Simeone to Alvarez, all of them one touch – yes, yes, a bit late for that.

Atlético had a lead and with 20 minutes left, the Hitman completed another job, or so it seemed. Sørloth had scored at Barcelona with 23 seconds remaining two days before Christmas, taking Atlético top, and now he had done it again. The club’s joint highest scorer, it was the eighth in a row he had scored from the bench, and it put Atlético above Barcelona in the table, a point behind Madrid. But it didn’t just mean that; it meant everything, all those feelings. The anger, fury and injustice, the pride too, Simeone’s response telling a story, the emotion written all over him. His team had got back up again, rebelled, fought fate. The title race was alive and so were they.

If all that was on his mind, so too was the change. Simeone turned to centre-back José Maria Giménez, but by the time he actually introduced him the lead had gone, everything happening too fast. “I should have put him on straight away,” he said. “Football doesn’t let you off.” From the kick-off, it took 25 seconds for Lewandowski to control and turn just inside the area, hitting a brilliant shot on the bounce, which he admitted afterwards gave Barcelona the belief they could actually win this. Atlético had not touched the ball from the kick-off. “The 2-0 didn’t have time to be 2-0,” Simeone said. “Barcelona get energy, confidence from that. And straight away it’s 2-2.”

Simeone Jr said: “Their first goal is instant, it leaves you flat, in shock … and with the second, that fear comes.” Marcos Llorente summed it up. “For the lead to last a minute is shit,” he said. “We started to feel the 120 minutes from Wednesday, that weighed on us. We weren’t getting out to block their crosses.”

From one of those, delivered by Raphinha five minutes later, Ferran Torres scored the second. Atlético came back at them – “There were moves that I call ‘almost’ but we ended up with that ‘almost’ being nothing,” Simeone said – but it remained 2-2. In eight days, Atlético were on course to win one, draw one, lose one and yet lose them all. When the ball came to Lamine Yamal on 91 minutes 25 seconds, they didn’t even have the draw, instead defeated on 92 minutes, penalties and 92 minutes. Lamine Yamal came inside from Gallagher and struck a shot off Reinildo that looped into the net. He raced to the corner, tearing off his shirt, waving it and throwing it into the air, teammates racing after him from the bench and the pitch, a pile of players building in the corner. Only Szczesny stayed put, the referee patiently waiting to give Lamine Yamal a yellow.

“I knew when I scored it would be in a big game,” Lamine Yamal said; his last league goal had been in the clásico; now he had defeated Atlético, Ferran Torres rounding it off with the final kick. It hadn’t been Barcelona’s best performance – they may well have played better in the two previous games against Atlético, a 2-1 defeat in the league and a 4-4 draw in the cup. “Until the first goal, we had just been watching the game go by, we can’t let that happen again,” Lamine Yamal said. The goals told a story of a different type of victory, the ball put in from wide not behind the defence and ultimately the 17-year-old’s strike had been fortuitous. But this was a huge win, one of character as much as quality to continue the run.

“They’re incredible: they fight, they never give up. There’s a very, very long way to go but I feel like this team can do big things,” Flick said.

Atlético hadn’t lost at home. They had conceded eight goals there all season; in 20 minutes they let in half as much again and were defeated for the first time. In the last two matches against Atlético, Barcelona have now scored eight. (And yes, they have also let in six.) Flick’s side are top, with a game in hand – against Osasuna – and they have now won seven league games in a row; they haven’t lost since the last time they faced Atlético, back in December. Lewandowski, Lamine Yamal and Raphinha have 75 goals between them.

“A fist on the desk,” Lamine Yamal called it. “It was a coup on the league,” the newspaper Sport said. “Barcelona smell of champions.” In the words of El Periodico this was “a rebellion that tastes like the title”. AS called it “a championship victory” for Barcelona and a week of passion for Atlético – of the “of Christ” variety. Cruelty visited them again, said former striker Kiko, no recriminations just regret, redemption denied. “You don’t need to say anything, you just need to see how the team competes,” Simeone said. “We will fight to the end and let’s see where we are with five games left.”

“Football,” Szczesny said, “is brutal.”