Barcelona - Diego Simeone has claimed if Lionel Messi played for Atletico Madrid, his side would have beaten Barcelona on Sunday.
But instead, it is Barca with one hand on the La Liga title after Messi's sensational free-kick earned them a deserved 1-0 victory at the Camp Nou.
Atletico arrived on the back of eight consecutive wins but Barcelona halted the surge and instead restored their own lead at the top to eight points, with 11 games left to play.
Messi proved the difference again, his bending first-half strike worthy of winning any contest and taking his career tally to an astonishing 600 goals, 539 for Barca and 61 for Argentina.
"If we remove the shirt of Messi and we put the one of the Atletico Madrid on him, Atletico wins 1-0," Simeone said afterwards.
When his remark was put to Ernesto Valverde, Barcelona's coach said: "Messi is a player like no other in the world. I do not know what would have happened and I do not want to imagine it."
It was Messi's third consecutive match in which he has scored with a free-kick, after he slid one under the wall against Girona and then planted another into the top corner against Las Palmas.