Barca were handed their first defeat of the League this seasonat the Vicente Calederon by Atletico Madrid. Our last three visits to Vicente Calederon has ended in defeats, and this stadium is quickly becoming a nightmare for every Barca fan and player. Two early goals from Forlan and Simao were enough for Atletico Madrid eventhough Ibrahmovic pulled one back for Barca. Barca's night was made more terrible by Keita's harmstring injury. He is expected to be out of the game for four weeks. Guardiola with all his problems at defense decided to start with Jeffren at the Right Back position. Puyol, Milito and Maxwell started at their usual position. Barca midfield included Xavi, Keita and Busquets. The front three had Iniesta, Ibrahmovic and Messi.Barca Defense Struggles from the Start
Barca started the game in the wrong fashion. Seven minutes into the game Keita pulled up with harmstring and was replaced by Pedro. That was made worse in the ninth minute when Reyes 
managed to get past Iniesta and Busquets, played a great ball pass Puyol to find Forlan's run; Forlan cooly finished past Valdes. It was criminal from Busquets to let Reyes skip past hi opening the defense. With a makeshift defense we needed our defensive midfielder to be strong. In the 18th minute Aguero should have made the scoreline 2-0, but he decided to square the ball to Forlan after breaking Barca's offside trap; Puyol recoverd well to cut off the ball to Forlan. But in the 22nd minute Atletico Madrid finally made it 2-0, with a great free kick by Simao from the edge of box. Ibrahmovic pulled one back for Barca in the 27th minute from a corner after Puyol flicked the ball to him.In the 33rd minute Ibra unleashed a great shot but Atletico custodian, De Gea made a great save.
FC Barcelona Showed no Intent in Second Half
Everyone was expecting Barca to fire from the start in the second half. In the 56th minute there was huge chaos in Atletico's box with some desperate defending keeping Barca boys at bay. But after that Barca looked like a unit who was not at all interested in equalising. In the 64th minute 
Puyol pulled out a great challenge to cut off the danger from Aguero. Messi had some hopeful runs and shot in the half, but none was good enough.
This was one of the worst performance by the FC Barcelona this season, especially the second half. Busquets proved that he has to go a long way in making good impact in tough games. Xavi had a horrible night. The defense looked fragile. The only good thing about tonight's match was Ibrahmovic ending his goal drought. But I was not too impresed by his overall performance. His lack of speed means that we were never able to catch Atletico defense on counter.Iniesta had a good night, so did Messi but with Xavi struggling they couldn't make much of an impact.