How Barcelona can breach Diego Simeone's castle and beat Atletico Madrid in second leg of UEFA Champions League quarter-final

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Diego Simeone and his Atletico Madrid team put on a masterclass in knockout football last week. Beating Barcelona in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarter-final, they took a 2-0 lead back with them to Madrid. Now, ahead of the second leg, Barcelona need to figure out a way to breach Simeone's castle. How exactly can they do it? We break it down.

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Barcelona are up against it in their UEFA Champions League quarter-final clash against Atletico Madrid after a shock 2-0 home defeat in the first leg last week.

Now Hansi Flick's side must travel to the Metropolitano, where Atleti have lost just twice all season, and both times by just one goal.

Atletico may not be the defensive force of yesteryear, but Diego Simeone still knows how to set up a team not to be beaten and put up seemingly impregnable walls.

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Atletico have never lost a Champions League knockout game at home in Spain under Simeone (they lost to Chelsea at a neutral venue in 2021), and as a club they haven't lost one since 1997 against Ajax.

So the task will be tough for Barcelona, a team that certainly has some history with remontadas in the Champions League. How can Barcelona breach Simeone's castle? Here are a few ideas.

Attack Atletico with pace

The first thing is to put Atletico under more pressure, particularly their central defenders.

Both David Hancko and Jose Maria Gimenez will miss the game through injury, whilst Marc Pubill is suspended after picking up a yellow card in last week's match.

That means that it is likely that Clement Lenglet will come in to partner Robin Le Nomand. It is imperative that Barca test Lenglet as much as they can and whilst Lamine Yamal will be key to this, so too could Marcus Rashford.

Rashford regularly looked like the most threatening player for Barcelona last week other than Yamal, and he picked up a goal at the weekend against Espanyol with a fine finish.

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Flick has seemingly been reluctant to use Rashford as a central striker, but whether it's the Englishman or Ferran Torres - who ended his long goal drought at the weekend - it feels as if it might be the right decision to leave Robert Lewandowski on the bench.

The legendary Pole has looked a little off the pace at times this season, and he was practically anonymous in the first leg.

His smarts cannot be underestimated, but in many ways he is exactly the kind of player that Atletico and their defenders love playing against.

By introducing pace via Rashford or Torres, it should be easier for Barcelona to break Atletico out of their structure.

Unleash Fermin and Gavi

Speaking of using pace to disrupt and break open the game, it feels as if at least one of Fermin Lopez and Gavi should start, perhaps both.

We wrote previously about Lopez's unique space-finding ability that helped rip Newcastle United to pieces in the preceding round, but it's obvious why Flick might have felt he wasn't going to be as useful against a team that sits deeper in Atletico.

However, with the tie in the balance, and given Dani Olmo's extremely disappointing performance in the first leg, it might make sense for Flick to unleash Lopez from the off.

Not only can he help put pressure on Lenglet, his runs compared to Olmo's should pull Atletico's central midfielders out of position, something Barcelona struggled to do in the first leg.

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Gavi can offer similar, but from slightly deeper. With Eric Garcia likely dropping back into central defence to cover the suspended Pau Cubarsi, that leaves a gap next to Pedri.

Both Gavi and Frenkie De Jong are working their way back from injuries, so it might be a case of them doing a half each.

If that is the case, then Gavi might be the logical option to start the game and use his pitbull-like tenacity to play Atletico at their own game and put them under pressure early on.

When we're talking about pulling apart a rigid structure like Atletico's, a player like Gavi can be critical, not only because of the ground he covers but also because of his bite in breaking up the opponent's attacks and keeping the pressure on.

It's also worth noting that Gavi created two chances in his half of action last week - no player on the pitch created more bar Yamal. He offers a lot going forward.

Take the pressure off Yamal

And on a related note, one of the key puzzles Flick has to solve is how he can ease the burden on Yamal.

The teenager played the full 90 minutes in the win over Espanyol, which is not inherently an issue given they more or less killed the title race and will have next weekend off, but the general workload in combination with Barcelona's dependence on him has to be a concern.

By the end of the first leg it felt like Barcelona didn't have any options for attacking, bar giving it to Yamal and hoping for the best.

That was a stark contrast to the first half, when it felt like they were splitting their attacks equally between both flanks and getting Rashford involved as well.

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The problem for Barcelona in the first leg was that it was too easy for Atletico to crowd Yamal out because he wasn't getting support from Olmo, Lewandowski or Jules Kounde.

Despite this, he could still make magic. That's a testament to his incredible talent, but Barcelona have to be able to create other avenues to free Yamal up.

TNT Sports' Rob Hemmingway was at the Camp Nou for the first leg and wrote about how Yamal needed help.

Without the injured Raphinha, that is always going to be hard, but by moving Rashford around or bringing in someone like Lopez, that should give Atletico at least something else to think about, rather than focusing more of their efforts on Yamal.

Prey on the fear factor

These two teams actually faced each other recently across two legs in the Copa del Rey semi-finals. In the first leg - in Madrid - Atleti ripped Barcelona apart and secured themselves a 4-0 victory.

In the second leg, the Catalans had nothing to lose and went 3-0 up in their quest of turning things around.

Not only does this show that they have the capacity to score goals against this team, but more importantly, it shows how vulnerable this Atletico side can be mentally compared to previous iterations.

By the end of the game, Atletico were holding on for dear life and Barcelona were unlucky not to find an equaliser and force extra-time.

Even if a goal doesn't come early, if Barcelona can reduce the deficit, they have to believe that will open more gaps in the barricades.

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