Atleti Loses First Home Match of 2014; Barca Draws

Spanish champ Atletico Madrid on Sunday lost its first home game of 2014, ending an unbeaten sequence of 27 games stretching back to May of last year, as Villarreal won 1-0 at the Vicente Calderon.With six minutes remaining in a tense match, Argentine starlet Luciano Vietto turned past Diego Godin and calmly slotted past Miguel Angel Moya to give the Yellow Submarine afamous win. Incidentally, Vietto is a former player of Atleti coach Diego Simeone while the pair were together at Racing Club in Argentina. After the game, both Simeone and Vietto praised eachother.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Barcelona could only manage a 0-0 draw at struggling Getafe. Following the game, Getafe coach Cosmin Contra scoffed at Barca manager Luis Enrique’s claim that his team had dominatedthe match. “Barca missed chances? In the first half, we had the game’s best chance through Lafita, [Barca goalkeeper Claudio] Bravo made a great save,” the Romanian said.”And if the referee didn’t blow the final whistle during our chance [at the end of the match], anything could have happened. We limited Barcelona to very few chances.”

With currentleader Real Madrid beating Almeria 4-1 on Friday, second-place Barca is now four points behind Los Blancos while Atleti is six points behind its city rival in third.