Epilogue of the first weekend of April: Barça is getting closer to its goal, Real Madrid clearly needs to turn to the Champions League

Barcelona has had several attempts this season to break away from Real Madrid at the top of the La Liga table, and whenever they did, their biggest rival found a way to respond, but the first weekend in April may be crucial in the fight for the Spanish championship title.

The step the Catalans took on Saturday was a giant step towards defending the trophy, as they defeated Atletico in Madrid, and a few hours earlier, Real Madrid surprisingly lost to Mallorca in the Balearic Islands.

The table now clearly shows who the mega-favorite is to look forward to at the end - Barca has a seven-point advantage with eight rounds remaining and seems strong enough to maintain that advantage without any major problems.

- We knew what happened to Real in the Balearic Islands and that was certainly additional motivation before the derby with Atletico - said "blaugrana" defender Eric Garcia.

Barça celebrated 2:1 after the turnaround, and achieved victory in the 87th minute with a goal by Robert Lewandowski, who was hit by the ball in the shoulder and bounced into the net after Juan Musso stopped Joao Cancelo's shot.

Barca was lucky, Atletico certainly wasn't, although they may have deserved it since they played the entire second half with ten men due to Nick Gonzalez's sending off.

Barcelona could then have stayed with ten men, the referee first showed a straight red card to Gerardo Martino, but after a call from the VAR room, he corrected it to a yellow card, even though the tackle on Thiago Almada (admittedly, unintentional) was very harsh.

- I think we took a big step towards the title in Madrid. But there's still a lot to play for - added Garcia.

Atletico took the lead through Giuliano Simeone, and Marcus Rashford equalized immediately after the end of the first half.

- It was very important that we equalized quickly. It made us calmer going forward - emphasized coach Hansi Flick.

Barça and Atletico made a real introduction at the "Metropolitan" to what follows on Wednesday at the "Camp Nou", as the same rivals meet in the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

- We didn't think about that match, we'll turn to it now - said the German coach on the bench of the Catalan giants.

And what do they think at Real Madrid after all this?

- The defeat against Mallorca is on my mind, I told the players that - coach Alvaro Arbeloa is clear.

Bayern is a rival in the Champions League on Tuesday, it will be a clash of giants.

- Everyone knows how important the Champions League is to us and I ask the boys to forget Mallorca and only think about Bayern - Arbeloa emphasized and let everyone know which competition is the priority for the "Whites".