Neymar stars in Barcelona win over Atletico Madrid

Barcelona were 2-1 victors over Atletico Madrid on Saturday night, as they fought back from Atletico’s 51st minute opener at the Vicente Calderon stadium. Lionel Messi welcomed the birth of his second child last week and as a result of that, he was forced to miss a day of training. Due to that, Barça boss Luis Enrique decided to put the Argentine on the bench – but as he does in almost every game he’s involved, he still had a big part to play.

Both teams went into the match with 100% record in their first two Primera Division matches, and both were also yet to concede a goal too. Barça had edged wins in their first two games, as both Athletic Bilbao and Malaga succumbed to 1-0 losses to the reigning champions, whilst Atletico followed up an opening day 1-0 victory against Las Palmas, with a 3-0 thumping of Sevilla.

After a rather dismal first half, with neither side particularly threatening enough to warrant a goal – the match erupted into life with 51 minutes, courtesy of one Fernando Torres. A first time pass from Tiago sent the former-Liverpool man through on goal, and he made no mistake leaving Marc Andre ter Steigen in the Barça net with no chance. Just under five minutes later, Barcelona were level, and it was our man Neymar who got the equaliser – as he fired home a superb free kick past Jan Oblak from 25-yards out.

At 1-1, that equaliser sparked Enrique into making a game changing substitution, and you guessed whom that game changer might be… Messi replaced Rakitic in the 60th minute, and it didn’t take long for the magician to make an impact, setting up two wonderful opportunities for Neymar – as the visitors looked for a winner. And the winner would come Barça’s way, with Messi showing his importance to the squad once more. Luis Suarez laid a pass into the path of Messi, who duly slotted past Oblak to complete the comeback, and seal the win.

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Sources: telegraph.co.uk / espnfc.co.uk