Things are so tight at present that any dropping of points at this stage of the 2024/25 campaign could be fatal to the three club's chances of landing the league title.
Despite the disappointment of being dumped out of the Champions League yet again by near neighbours Real, it appeared from the early exchanges that Diego Simeone's side were well up for the fight against a Barcelona side that have been rampant of late.
In the recent past Barca had scored three against Benfica in the Champions League, four against Atleti in the Copa del Rey and four against both Real Sociedad and Sevilla in the league.
If there's one thing about this current Barcelona crop aside from scoring lots of goals it's that they don't know when they're beaten, and so it proved again in the match at the Metropolitano as the Catalan giants came from two goals down with 20 minutes to play to win 4-2.
It was the first time that Barcelona have won a league game after trailing by two or more goals since September 23rd, 2023 against Celta Vigo, and also the first time that Atletico Madrid have lost after leading at the break in La Liga since 18th March 2018 against Villarreal (97 games without defeat after leading at half time).
What's even more remarkable is, when you look at home games only, Atleti went 138 games without losing after being ahead at half-time before Sunday night, their last loss in that regard also coming against the Yellow Submarine way back on December 13th, 2009.
Julian Alvarez and Alexander Sorloth were both on target with their 11th league goals of the season - the most of any Atleti players - to have the crowd purring, whilst Robert Lewandowski started Barca's fightback with his 22nd LaLiga strike, exactly the output of Alvarez and Sorloth combined.
Two shots on target in the game was all that the Rojiblancos could muster from six in total, whilst Lamine Yamal and Lewandowski between them had nine shots alone, four of which were on target.
The same two players had the most touches in the opposition box (six and eight respectively), with only Giuliano Simeone's five for the hosts coming close.
For all of Atleti's capacity to want to work hard and get forward at every opportunity, when it mattered most they fell short.
Barca's other three goals on the night (Ferran Torres 2, Lamine Yamal 1) came in the final 15 minutes of the game, forming part of the 17 goals that the Blaugranes have now scored in that time frame - the most in LaLiga this season.
It gave notice to every other team in the league that if they didn't know already, Hansi Flick's side will just keep coming until the referee blows his whistle for full-time.
The headline writers will concentrate on the comeback of course, however, the story of how well Barca manipulated the ball during the game against a supremely tough opponent shouldn't go unnoticed either.
All of Barcelona's defenders had a pass completion success of at least 90.2%, with only Wojciech Szczesny and Lewandowski from their starting XI dipping under 80%.
Only five of Atleti's players managed 80% or more, with Simeone posting a horrendous 58.8%.
That particular stat is brought into even sharper focus when you realise that Pablo Barrios made the most passes for Atleti with just 32, whilst Barca's Pau Cubarsi made 99 during the match, Pedri had just 10 less and Inigo Martinez (84) as well as Jules Kounde (72) were also brilliant in this regard.
It was as if Cholo Simeone had set his stall out for his team not to be beaten rather than going for the win even if, at 2-0 up and with three-quarters of the game gone, the score told a different story.
They were, as might've been expected, better in duels won (51.4% to 47.8%) and also in aerial duels won (60% to 40%).
16 of their 19 tackles were successful compared to just nine from 22 tackles for Barca, and so to that end, one can't be too critical of the hosts' combativeness and desire to win.
The fact that all of their outfield players won possession back for their side at least once would also appear to indicate that they were primed for battle.
Yet the visitors made more interceptions (six to five), had more successful dribbles (47.8% to 41.4%), played double the passes (640 to 319) and with 575 successful passes were miles ahead of Atleti's 244.
267 passes in the final third from Hansi Flick's side does show a side willing to take risks in that area of the pitch and that's something that Atleti appeared not to want to do as their paltry 80 passes at the sharp end would seem to evidence.
16 clearances from Jan Oblak and his defence does speak of Barca being on top in an attacking sense too, though the narrative of the game would also see the Catalans' back line having to make 14 clearances of their own.
If that metric therefore allows us to learn anything at all it's that Simeone's men just didn't take advantage when they had the chance, a criticism that's been levelled at Atletico Madrid in the past.
In the cold light of day, it was a real opportunity missed for those in the red and white, with the title now Barca's to lose.
They're back on top of LaLiga with the same points as Real Madrid but with a game in hand and still to play Los Blancos in Barcelona.
If they do go on and lose the title from here, they'll only have themselves to blame.
