Atletico vs Barca, first leg of the Copa del Rey

Atletico vs Barca, first leg of the Copa del Rey

Cant wait for this game. Atleti need to bounce back after their 3-1 loss away at Valencia. Sounds like el Kun will be on the bench, but hopefully we will see Maxi back. Barca look unstoppable (partly due to the shambolic refereeing at the Nou Camp!) but I'm just hoping Atleti can pull off a great home result.

Sounds like Messi is returning for Barca which is terrible news! But Puyol, Marquez and Hleb are all injured, whilst Valdes, Xavi and Eto'o are not playing for them. Absolutely vital that Atleti boss the midfield and not let them play.

Don't see Barca putting a lot of emphasis on the Copa del Rey.

Yeah, they're running away with La Liga no worries though, and Champion's League is still over a month away... Their side will be strong anyway. Regardless, it will be a good game, they have players with quality all over the place. And Real are out already, so they could well fancy a treble!

Barca 1-0 up after 15 minutes. Gah! El-Kun2009-01-07 08:35:26

Atleti 0-1 Barca halftime. Ref is unbelievable. Atleti fans absolutely screaming at him. Not only the ridiculous bookings of Simao and Maniche, but numerous free kicks going Barca's one and almost none going Atleti's way. We should have had a penalty for handball as well

1-2!!!! Vamos Atleti! Ujfalusi!! Get in!

1-3 now. Messi, offside goal. Messi hat-trick, I think. I missed the first one, cos the stream was mucking up. Gutted. I hate Barca, they dont half play the good football they're supposed to play...they just cheat, dive and get poor decisions from the ref.

You don't really mean this do you?

Nah, I'm just well bitter. They do dive though. 1-3 fulltime. Maxi got a disallowed goal when he was clearly onside. What a joke. Absolutely gutted, especially the sending off and penalty.

They taught us an attacking masterclass (and how not to defend!) at the Nou Camp earlier this season anyhow. Still, think we could have got something from this game without the sending off. Then we got caught trying to attack to get an equaliser at 2-1 and they punished us.

Man, I just watched most of it again. The refereeing was poor, no doubt, but Messi was absolute class. He was really unlucky just before he scored the third one to hit the bar. So I've calmed down and acknowledge that he was out-of-this-world today. We couldn't stop him. I still think the penalty was soft, but my stream was really hard to see whether there was contact, and Maxi was clearly onside when he was put through but called back for offside. Wouldnt have changed the game at all, but at least changed the tie. Still, great game from Messi, however you look at it. El-Kun2009-01-07 12:16:54