Barcelona entered the top four in the Spanish La Liga standings after achieving a valuable and deserved victory of 4-2 over their guests Atletico Madrid on Sunday, in the highlight match of the 23rd round of the tournament. Barcelona's points rose to 38, placing them fourth, qualifying for next season's Champions League, surpassing Atletico (the defending champion) by two points, as they dropped to fifth place.
Atletico opened the scoring early with a goal from Yannick Carrasco in the eighth minute, but Jordi Alba quickly equalized for Barcelona in the tenth minute. Gavi and Ronald Araujo added the second and third goals for Barcelona in the 21st and 43rd minutes respectively, while Brazilian star Dani Alves scored the fourth goal in the 49th minute.
Luis Suarez reignited the match by scoring Atletico's second goal in the 58th minute against his former team, but the Spanish capital team failed to at least equalize, despite Barcelona playing with ten men starting from the 69th minute after Alves was sent off.
This was Barcelona's first victory over Atletico since December 1, 2019, as they had not managed to win against Argentine coach Diego Simeone's team in the last five matches across various competitions, which included three victories for Atletico and two draws.
