Barcelona beat Atletico Madrid 3-1 in the Spanish Cup last 16 round first leg played at Vicente Calderon. Barca wizard Lionel Messi rallied Barca's troops as he scored a hat-trick (12, 58, 80) to earn Barcelona the away win. Czech defender Tomas Ujfalosi hit Atletico's only goal of the game on 69 minutes. The Catalans were in total control right from the start, and Messi was causing the Atletico defence all sorts of trouble on the right flank. The Argentine opened the score line with a cool finish after a clever back heel from Daniel Alves set him through on Gregory Coupet. In the second half, the hosts were reduced to ten men, after John Heitinga's clumsy tackle on Messi inside the Atletico box saw the Dutch defender receive a straight red. Messi stepped up to send Coupet the wrong side and convert the resulting penalty adding Barca's second. Atletico clinched a goal back when Ujfalosi was allowed to easily head a right flank corner past Jose Pinto in the Barcelona goal. However, Messi dented Atletico's hopes of a comeback by rounding Coupet and registering his third of the night ten minutes from time.
