Atletico Madrid overwhelm Sevilla in the first half to win 1-3 at the Sanchez-Pizjuan

Three minutes. That's all it took for Atletico Madrid to make its intentions clear at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan: Alex Baena finished from a tight angle on the right to make it 0-1 after a pass from Lee Kang-In, and the match never again looked like a contest between equals. In the end it finished 1-3 for the visitors, with Sevilla only getting on the scoresheet in stoppage time, long after the result had been settled.

The second blow came in the 25th minute, when Ademola Lookman slotted home low from inside the box after being set up by Pablo Barrios, making it 0-2. Before Sevilla could respond, Baena struck again: in the 32nd minute, he curled in a shot from outside the area off a Marcos Llorente assist to make it 0-3. In barely half an hour, the game was over as a contest. Sevilla had their moments, with Robbie Ure and Peque Fernandez both testing the goalkeeper without luck, but Atletico managed the lead comfortably through halftime, which arrived with the score at 0-3.

In the second half, the home side pushed harder and got its reward in the 66th minute: Miguel Sierra finished with his left foot from the center of the box, into the top corner, after a pass from Ure, making it 1-3 and putting a slightly better gloss on the scoreline. There were no more twists after that. Atletico managed the game with substitutions from Jose Maria Gimenez, Arnau Ortiz, Koke, Johnny Cardoso and Rodrigo Mendoza, while Sevilla kept trying but never found the second goal that might have brought some tension back to the match.

The numbers behind the dominance

What's striking is that the scoreline didn't fully capture how the game was actually played. Sevilla had more shots and more possession by the raw numbers, but Atletico was clinical exactly where it counted.

Sevilla fired off twice as many shots as their opponents but converted just one of their twenty attempts. Atletico, with far less attacking volume, was surgical on its first three strikes. According to our xG estimate calculated from the match's shots, the underlying numbers were much closer than the final score suggests: 1.335 for Sevilla against 1.419 for Atletico, a figure that points to a more even contest in terms of chance creation than the final result would indicate, especially given how ruthlessly the Madrid side struck in the first half.

Before the match, we had projected a 54% probability of an away win, against 21% for Sevilla and 25% for a draw, with expected goals of 1.89 for Atletico and 1.12 for Sevilla. The result ended up matching that forecast fairly well: the favorite won, though Sevilla managed more shots than that projection would have suggested.

What it means in the standings

With this result, Atletico Madrid moves to 7 points from 3 matches played, with 2 wins and 1 draw, putting them top of the table alongside Alaves, with whom they share first place despite a different goal difference on record. Sevilla, meanwhile, sits on 6 points from 3 matches played, the product of 2 wins and 1 loss, and now trails Atletico by 1 point in this direct comparison. The trip to the Pizjuan leaves a clear picture: Atletico struck fast and never let go of the lead, while Sevilla was left with the feeling of having created more than the final score ultimately reflected.