El Otro Clásico (The Other Derby or The Other Clásico) has been the name given to football matches between Atlético de Madrid and Barcelona.
Although both fan bases have Real Madrid as their main rival, with whom they form the trio with largest fan base in Spain and the most titles in La Liga,O paraíso dos craques estrangeiros (2003). Anuário Placar 2002. São Paulo: Editora Abril, p. 718 matches between Atleti and Barça are not friendlies, even though they are characterized by a high average of goals. The mutual animosity has resulted in a balanced number of expulsions, with 38 for Barcelona and 39 for Atlético, between the first duel in 1925 and the year 2026.
In fact, in women's football, the main classic in Spanish football is traditionally between these two clubs, and not the Barcelona vs. Real Madrid El Clásico, or the Madrid derby. In men's football, the rivalry was especially strong in the 1970s, when the Madrid team had been consistently more successful in recent years to the point of having only one less La Liga title than the Catalan club. It was also during this period that Atlético won the 1974 Intercontinental Cup, while Barcelona only won its first world title in 2009, after being defeated in two previous attempts (1992 and 2006).
From the 2010s onwards, with Atlético re-establishing itself as a consistent contender for trophies, the duels between rojiblancos and blaugranas regained prominence, which included three occasions when they met in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League (in 2014, 2016 and 2026) with the capital club eliminating Barcelona on all three occasions; also during this period, in the final round of 2013–14 La Liga, Atlético ended an eighteen-year drought without being Spanish champions precisely in a direct confrontation at Camp Nou.
Despite this unfavorable record in Champions League duels, Barcelona leads in other statistics, holding more titles in all competitions, a larger number of fans and a greater number of wins in direct duels: as of the first half of 2026, there had been 254 matches across all competitions, with 116 wins (and 474 goals for Barcelona) and 81 wins (and 374 goals) for Atlético. In La Liga, there were 178 matches (83 wins for Barcelona and 53 for Atlético), with another 50 in the Copa del Rey, in addition to eleven encounters in the Supercopa de España, six in the defunct Copa de la Liga, another six in the UEFA Champions League, two in the Copa Presidente de la Federación Española de Fútbol and one in the Copa Eva Duarte.
History Early years Barcelona was founded in 1899. Atlético de Madrid emerged in 1903, the same year as the creation of the Copa del Rey. However, the first meeting between the two teams only took place in 1925.
In its early years, the Madrid club was a subsidiary of Athletic Bilbao. This had the practical consequence of preventing Atlético from participating in the Copa del Rey, which remained the only national competition in Spanish football until 1929, when La Liga was created; until then, the Spanish Cup shared the calendar with different regional championships, with Barcelona competing in the Catalan football championship, while Atlético participated in the Campeonato Regional Centro.
The legal separation between Athletic and Atlético occurred at the turn of the 1910s to the 1920s, allowing Atlético to begin competing in the Copa del Rey. The first match against Barcelona, on 19 April 1925, was valid for the semi-finals of the 1925 edition of that tournament. Barcelona won 3–2 at their old Les Corts stadium. Josep Samitier scored the first goal of the match, in the 30th minute of the first half. Vicente Palacios equalized in the following minute and Andrés Tuduri even turned the score around in the 58th minute. The Catalans, however, also managed to turn the game around, with goals from Emili Sagi-Barba in the 62nd minute, from a penalty, and another from Samitier in the 75th minute.
In the second leg, Atlético won 2–1 on 26 April, at his old Estadio Metropolitano in Madrid. The two teams then played a playoff on 3 May, in Zaragoza, at the old Estadio Torrero, where Barcelona won 2–1, going on to become champions after defeating Arenas de Getxo in the final.Do rei, do presidente, do ditador... (2003). Anuário Placar 2002. São Paulo: Editora Abril, p. 720
In the following season, Atlético and Barcelona met again, in the 1926 Copa del Rey final, in a single match at Mestalla Stadium in Valencia on 16 May. The Madrid team were winning 2–0, with goals from Vicente Palacios in the 16th minute and Cosme in the 58th minute. However, the Catalans managed a comeback; first, they equalized in almost consecutive plays, with Samitier in the 62nd minute and Just in the following minute. Four minutes from the end of extra time, Paulino Alcántara scored the final goal of 3–2.
The clubs only met again in 1929, already in La Liga, in its inaugural edition. Atlético won 4–1, in the 5th round, on 10 March, while Barcelona won 4–0 in the 13th round, on 26 May. The frequency of high-scoring games would become a curious feature of the event; the first twenty-five years included results such as 4–2 (for Barcelona) and 3–2 (for Atlético) in 1930, 5–1 (for Barcelona) in 1935, 4–4 in 1940, 4–2, 6–0 and 5–4 (all Atlético wins) in 1941, 5–1 (for Barcelona) and 4–0 (for Atlético) in 1942, 5–4 (for Atlético) in 1944, 3–2 (for Barcelona) in 1947, 4–0 (for Barcelona) and 4–1 (for Atlético) in 1949, 6–4 for Atlético in 1950.
By the mid 1940s, Atlético still had more titles in La Liga than Barcelona.O paraíso dos craques estrangeiros (2003). Anuário Placar 2002. São Paulo: Editora Abril, p. 718 In that decade, some seasons had direct races between both clubs. In the 1946–47 season, Valencia and Athletic shared the top of the table, with Valencia being crowned as champion. Both had just two points above Atlético and three over Barcelona. Barcelona won the 1947–48 and 1948–49 seasons, with Valencia as runner up in both, while Atlético was another close candidate: its distance to the champion in those seasons was by four points and by three, respectively.
In 1951, Atlético and Barcelona had the same titles at La Liga, with four each. At that same year, in 1 November 1951, they decided the Copa Eva Duarte, who worked as a Supercopa de España before the creation of this trophy in 1982. Atlético was 1950–51 La Liga champion, while Barcelona had won the 1951 Copa. The match was played at Estadio Chamartín. Atlético won 2–0 through goals of Henry Carlsson and Adrián Escudero. Both coaches of the match, Helenio Herrera (Atlético) and Ferdinand Daučík (Barcelona), would manage the opposite team years later on that same decade. There, Barcelona frequently achieved high-scoring victories: 5–2 and 5–1 in 1952, 6–1 and 8–1 in 1953, 4–0 in 1954, 7–3 in 1956, 5–2 and 8–1 in 1957 and 5–0 in 1958.
Despite these results on the 1950s, throughout most of the 20th century both clubs had approximately the same number of titles in the Spanish league, something that only changed after the arrival of Johan Cruijff as coach of the Catalan team in 1990.
The rivalry in the 70s and 80s
After the late 1940s, the achievements of one club did not use to occur in disputes with the other, but direct competition became a constant throughout the 1970s. Valencia won 1970–71 La Liga after a fierce race against Barcelona (who ended with the same points of the champion) and Atlético, just one point behind them. The first time in which Barcelona and Atlético jointly occupied first and second place in La Liga then occurred in the 1972–73 season. It became remembered for the unusual dispute, in a tournament whose dispute involved the two teams from Madrid and the two ones from Barcelona city: it was the season in which Espanyol, leading at one point in the final stretch, came closest in being champion of the first division,MARTÍNEZ DÍAZ, Juan Pedro & ENSENYAT, Xavier Martín (2018). A un paso del título. Corazón Perico. Barcelona: Fundació del RCD Espanyol de Barcelona, p. 177 finishing the competition in 3rd, one point below Barça and three behind the champion Atleti.
That 1972–73 title meant Atlético had only one less La Liga title than Barcelona, which meant that Atlético's priority for the following season was initially to equal them as the second most successful team in the league. The Catalans reinforced their squad with Johan Cruijff and prevented this; it is in that context that Cruijff himself scored one of his most famous goals, in a 2–1 victory on 23 December 1973: in a move that earned him the nickname Flying Dutchman, Cruijff used an acrobatic move similar to a karate kick to take advantage of a cross from Carles Rexach and hit Miguel Reina's nets.
Later, for the second season in a row, 1973–74 La Liga saw the two clubs occupy the top two positions, this time with Barcelona as champions and Atlético as runners-up. It was because it became clear early on that the fight for that edition of the Spanish tournament was lost that the Madrid team began to focus its attention on the unprecedented UEFA Champions League. The Colchoneros reached the final of the 1973–74 season and were seconds away from winning it. Bayern Munich, however, managed to equalize in the last minute of extra time and win by a large margin in the replay. When the German club refused to play Independiente in the 1974 Intercontinental Cup, Atlético inherited the spot and became world champions decades before Barcelona.
Still in the 1970s, Atlético and Barcelona once again occupied the top two places in the 1976–77 La Liga, with Atlético being the champion and once again having one less title than the Blaugranas. The direct duel at Camp Nou in the 24th round proved preponderant, with Atlético maintaining a two-point advantage by securing a 1–1 draw thanks to an own goal by opponent Johan Neeskens.
The two clubs also contested the Spanish title in the 1980–81 season, in which the Madrid team gave the impression that they would be the champions, which at the time would have put them on par with Barcelona. However, the Madrid team weakened considerably in the final stretch, without a single victory in the final seven rounds. One of the then-leaders' untimely setbacks was at Camp Nou, with a 4–2 Barcelona victory orchestrated by Bernd Schuster, in a title race diluted with other clubs; the champions were Real Sociedad , who finished the competition three points ahead of Atlético.
Atlético and Barcelona faced each other again in the 1984–85 season, where they once again occupied the top two places. Another duel at Camp Nou, in the 26th round, proved decisive against Madrid's ambitions: Mario Cabrera and Hugo Sánchez scored goals in a 2–1 comeback victory. Barcelona had a ten-point advantage at that point, but Atlético had a game in hand and a victory for them could keep the title race alive. But Steve Archibald equalized three minutes from the end, psychologically securing the championship for the Catalans. Atlético was able to win the Copa del Rey in that same season and,Do rei, do presidente, do ditador... (2003). Anuário Placar 2002. São Paulo: Editora Abril, p. 720 later, obtain the 1985 Supercopa de España against Barcelona, winning 3–2 on aggregate.
Many goals in the 90s and 2000