Ademola Lookman’s penalty after a VAR review and Alexander Sorloth’s finish from a Marcos Llorente cross gave Atlético Madrid a 2-1 victory over Osasuna at El Sadar on Sunday, a game that ended with Marcos Llorente sent off and Kike Barja reducing the arrears in stoppage time.
The scoreline left Atlético fourth in La Liga after the win and Osasuna sitting 11th, with Atlético three points behind Villarreal as the league enters its closing stages.
Lookman opened the scoring from the spot after video review upheld a handball by Javi Galan, giving Atlético an early edge that they extended when Sorloth met Llorente’s back-post cross to make it 2-0. Llorente’s involvement was costly in the end: he was shown a second yellow for a foul on Aimar Oroz and dismissed, forcing Atlético to see out the match a man short.
The match carried weight beyond the final result. Before kickoff, Sports Mole had Osasuna 10th with 42 points from 35 matches and Atlético fourth with 63 points from 19 wins, six draws and 10 defeats; after the win Atlético remained fourth in the table while Osasuna dropped or remained at 11th. With three rounds remaining in the season, the narrow margin separating Atlético from Villarreal narrows the margin for error.
Discipline and late drama supplied the tension. After Llorente’s dismissal, Atlético were reduced to ten men and had to withstand a late surge from the hosts; stoppage-time substitute Kike Barja struck to make the scoreline nervy. The noted yellow cards for Osasuna’s Enzo Boyomo and Alejandro Catena as well as Atlético’s Robin Le Normand, underlining how physical the contest became and how small incidents on the pitch are now carrying extra consequence in a tight run-in.
Context from both sides’ recent form sharpened why the result matters. Sports Mole recorded that Osasuna had been in reasonable home form, with three wins, two draws and one defeat in their last six league matches at El Sadar. Atlético, by contrast, arrived with uneven recent results: Sports Mole said they had won only two, drawn one and lost two of their last five matches across all competitions and had managed just two wins in their last six away La Liga games. The recent head-to-head record between the clubs — three Atlético wins and two Osasuna wins in their last five meetings, according to Sports Mole — suggested a close matchup and one that any slip could swing either way.
The immediate consequence is straightforward: Atlético hold fourth but look vulnerable. The club’s ability to keep that place will now be tested over the final three rounds, and the red card to Llorente plus the late concession at El Sadar turn what could have been a comfortable away win into a warning shot. For Osasuna, the late goal will feel like a small moral victory but leaves them midtable with little margin for ambition this season.
