Atletico Madrid put 9 points between themselves and Barcelona with a 1-0 win at the Wanda Metropolitano that leaves Ronald Koeman’s sorry side cut adrift in the title race.
Diego Simeone had never beaten Barcelona in the league and Atletico had not beaten Barca at home in 10 years.
In the first half, Atletico played the much more entertaining football, working it nicely between themselves in triangles around the Barca midfield – Koke was central to many of their finest moves, his link-up play with Joao Felix and Angel Correa in the final third routinely easy on the eye.
In stoppage time of the first half when Marc-Andre ter Stegen came charging out of his area and was cleverly nutmegged by Yannick Carrasco who scored into an empty net from distance.
A goal was enough to defeat Barcelona.
In other LaLiga Match, Real Madrid’s LaLiga title defence suffered another early setback as they were held to a 1-1 draw at Villarreal despite leading for 74 minutes on Saturday.
The champions were without captain Sergio Ramos and star striker Karim Benzema due to injury but were in front after just 107 seconds through Mariano Diaz, back in the line-up for the first time in 18 months.
Mariano scored just in 2 minutes but Gerard Moreno levelled the scored from a penalty.
