adminAtletico Madrid ached their first semi-final in Europe’s elite club competition for 40 years after a 2-1 aggregate success over Barcelona.
They beat the Catalan giants 1-0 at the Vicente Calderon on the night thanks to Koke’s early strike in the Champions League quarter-final, second leg. In a breathless opening to the game, Diego Simeone’s Atletico side struck both posts and the crossbar.
They took the lead through the Spanish midfielder’s fifth-minute strike after good work by David Villa and Raul Garcia.
Barca never found any consistent attacking threat in the second half — with Lionel Messi largely ineffective — to send the Catalans to their earliest exit in seven years. The four-time winners of the competition may yet also lose out to Atletico for the Primera Division title — the play each other on the final day — and will do so having suffered a first loss to the capital club in four years.
Atletico’s start was so compelling that the only shock was they were just 1-0 up after the first 20 minutes.
Koke grabbed the vital goal to send them ahead in the tie after five minutes, although it could have been so much better, but for hitting their hat-trick of near-misses.
David Villa was the chief culprit, spurning two glorious chances, to build on Koke’s early score.
Even that early goal relied on the frame being rattled first, as Barca failed completely to recover after Adrian Lopez thrashed against the right-hand post.
Villa was allowed to dink a cross back across goal and Adrian leapt highest to knock the ball down for an unmarked Koke to side-foot home first time from inside the six-yard box.
Barca were rattled and Villa should have punished his former employers even further when Atletico won the ball on the edge of the area only for the striker to shoot into the left-hand post.
Villa made it the complete set when he hooked a shot over Jose Pinto and on to the crossbar after again easily finding a route behind the Barca defence.
They were the type of chances Costa would have been expected to gobble up. When Barca eventually did venture forward even Messi appeared tentative, heading a Dani Alves cross wide when he found a gaping hole in the home defence.
Barca did at least start to find a foothold for the remainder of the half, albeit without offering any real threat they would score the goal they now required. — Skysports
Online Reporter