Why Atletico Madrid Should Be Confident Heading into Barcelona Clash

La Liga matches between Atletico Madrid and Barcelona have come to have a defining feel about them in recent years—although more so at the end of a campaign rather than early on.

Last season, Lionel Messi’s 65th-minute winner secured Barca’s 1-0 victory at the Vicente Calderon, as well as the league title in the process, while the year before it was Diego Godin’s header in Catalonia that gave Atletico one of the most unlikely major title successes of modern times.

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It’s not quite the new El Clasico, but Barca’s matches with the “other” Madrid have now become global events, and there will be nothing different about Saturday evening’s clash, regardless of the fact that it is coming in just the third match of the season.

It’s also coming with Atletico having been perhaps the most impressive of the two teams so far in 2015/16.

Both sides have won both of their matches, and neither has conceded a goal. But the manner in which the team from the capital dispatched Sevilla 3-0 just before the international break suggests that they’ll be the team going into the clash in the higher spirits.

Diego Simeone’s side are free from injuries now that left-back Filipe Luis has returned to training, while Barca—as Bleacher Report’s Rik Sharma points out—have a multitude of problems, with Gerard Pique suspended and Dani Alves and Claudio Bravo injured, meaning that three of the usual back five (if you’re including the goalkeeper) will be missing.

That is hardly ideal preparation against an Atletico attack that looked rampant in Seville, where Antoine Griezmann was popping up everywhere and substitute Jackson Martinez grabbed his first Atleti goal.

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You’d think it would be the first of many, and the Colombian could start in place of Fernando Torres as Simeone looks to go on the attack and pepper goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Barca’s “Copa keeper,” who will be making his La Liga debut here.

The German conceded four goals in each of his last two matches—the European and Spanish Super Cups—and while, of course, Barca have the ammunition to hurt any team, win any match and claim any competition, it’ll be the hosts who are running more smoothly going into the game.

Win, and Simeone will see his side open up a three-point gap on last season’s champions, albeit at this embryonic stage of the season.

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It’s not really the points that will matter so much to the Argentinian and his team, though, but more the statement of intent that his side are ready to challenge for the title once again.

Losing Arda Turan to Barca this summer was another reminder that, regardless of whatever success they achieve, clubs such at Atletico are always viable to get picked off by the so-called “bigger clubs” both in their own division and abroad.

After failing to seriously challenge for the title last season, there are plenty at the club—Griezmann, Koke, perhaps even Simeone himself—who might be feeling that this will be the last crack they’ll have at winning the league with Atletico before a move away, meaning that a good start will be vital.

Beat Barcelona, make it three wins from three and send out a message to the rest of the division that they mean business this season, and it certainly will have been a good start for the weekend’s hosts.

What’s more, the introspection that would follow any defeat for Barcelona would raise the pressure on Luis Enrique as any defeat for the Catalans always does. In addition to that, stopping Lionel Messi from scoring would mean that the Argentinian maestro would have failed to find the net in three straight league games—a crisis by his standards.

There is plenty for Atletico to aim for, then, and plenty to be confident about.

Perhaps they’ll be looking back at this fixture as a pivotal one come the end of the season.

Perhaps, again, we all will.