Luis Suárez strikes as Atlético Madrid push Koeman closer to Barcelona exit

It had to be him. The man who was forced out of Barcelona and immediately brought the league title to Atlético Madrid may also have brought Ronald Koeman’s brief and ultimately bitter time at the Camp Nou to a close that has long been coming. On the night when the Metropolitano filled for the first time since he arrived, becoming the fans’ idol even in their absence, Luis Suárez provided an assist and a goal to beat Barcelona 2-0 and pushed the Dutchman even closer to a door already held open for him, the roles reversed a year on.

Suárez remains angry at how he was treated by his former manager at Barcelona – “like a 15-year-old” as he put it this week. Instead, he is 34 but the fire still burns and the finishing is still deadly – for Koeman especially. Barcelona’s president, Joan Laporta, claimed on the morning of this match that the result would not change anything, which was true in that the manager was already finished and this can only have made his inevitable demise more imminent, providing an end – if that is what it proves – that could have been scripted and was soon signed.

When Suárez followed up Thomas Lemar’s opening goal with the second, the Uruguayan lifted his fingers to his ear, emulating a phone call. It still hurts him – and drives him – that Koeman had sent him to train alone and then dumped him by phone. That conversation lasted barely 30 seconds; its consequences have lasted significantly longer. This was revenge of sorts, even if he refused to say so. And it was not the only call of a noisy night.

Suspended following a red card at Cádiz, Koeman was not on the bench for this but that did not make it easier to take. At one point in the first half cameras caught him shouting angrily, desperately down the phone, like a man whose taxi should have been here ages ago. Through the glass and out on the pitch below him, his team were already a goal down and did not wear the look of a side ready to rebel, so quick to collapse.

There was a lot of the ball for Barcelona but not much presence, just a familiar fragility. Atlético could hardly be more different, Thomas Lemar and João Félix cutting right through them, both sending shots past the near post when the opener arrived. João Félix turned sharply inside to Suárez whose first-time pass could not have been better weighted to send Lemar away to lift it beyond Marc-André ter Stegen and into the net. The German was on his knee, again. Barcelona were soon on theirs.

Another lovely triangle, this time between Yannick Carrasco and João Félix, left Suárez one on one only to bend his shot wide. Suárez looked to the skies while Diego Simeone held his head in his hands. That does not happen often and it would not happen next time.

Lemar and João Félix combined again, advancing from deep and almost without opposition, the Frenchman clipping a ball to Suárez alone deep inside the area.

Suárez controlled, slowed and waited, as if wanting to enjoy the moment before slipping in the knife, placing the ball into the corner. He resisted the urge to roar, instead raising his hands to offer an apology that was certainly not aimed at everyone he left behind in Catalonia.

Simeone’s team, who have made a dangerous habit of conceding first this season, gifting opponents the opening 45 minutes of games, headed down the tunnel two ahead with a feeling of total control and the place bouncing. Barcelona were done, Gerard Piqué later saying they could have played for hours and they would not have scored. When they got a chance 15 minutes into the second half, Philippe Coutinho was denied by Jan Oblak, his slightly sad, insecure shot a portrait of his time at the club and his subsequent removal feeling almost like an act of mercy.