Barcelona took a 4-2 lead as the match entered the final minutes, but Marcos Llorente's 84th-minute goal and Alexander Sorloth's 90+3th-minute goal helped Atletico secure a valuable draw away from home.
The two teams will meet again in the return match at Metropolitano in Madrid on 2 April, the winning team will face Real Madrid or Real Sociedad in the final.
A while after the match ended, I still had no appropriate words to talk about this match. We were really disappointed with the result, given the team's excellent performance.
I was really angry about the fourth goal. The players did not put pressure on the opponent. This is not the way we do it.
Barcelona is a young team, we have to improve. Of course it's not the best result, but we have one more game and I think we can win," said Barcelona coach Hansi Flick after the match.
The way Barcelona lost their advantage in the last minute was even more painful when considering their own efforts to turn the game around.
Atletico took a 2-0 lead in just the first 6 minutes, with Julian Alvarez and Antoine Griezmann scoring. But then, Barca played well to score 4 goals thanks to Pedri, Cubarsi, Martinez and Lewandowski. Unfortunately, Barca could not defend their results afterwards.
"I think we dominated the 75th and 80th minutes. I am very satisfied with this, the way we play, the way we come back.
The mentality is amazing. I'm satisfied with many things, 95%, only 5% are not satisfied, this is the reason why we conceded 4 goals today and we have to solve that problem. Our job is to do that, Flick added.
Since the beginning of 2025, Barcelona is still unbeaten after 14 matches, with 11 wins and 3 draws.
For striker Sorloth, who equalized 4-4 for Atletico, he had a great moment when he scored against Barcelona. I think this is the 4th or 5th match I have scored against Barcelona at Barcelona, he said. That gave me a great feeling.
Flick also highly appreciated Atletico, who are fiercely competing with Barca in the LaLiga championship race. "We played with a great team," he said. Atletico are very strong, they created a lot of pressure in the last 10 minutes, bringing on new strikers and the strength they have, it is not easy to defend".
