Lionel Messi was unhappy with his teammates and their “childish” mistakes after FC Barcelona lost to Atletico Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup semifinal on Thursday.

Barca had dominated proceedings at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Saudi Arabia, however conceded two sloppy goals in the final ten minutes to gift Atletico a 3-2 win.

“We need to try and continue playing as well as we did today for the rest of the year, but make sure we don’t make the childish errors,” according to Reuters. “We let a game slip which we had under control.”

Messi and Antoine Griezmann had cancelled out Koke’s opener, before Alvaro Morata and Angel Correa sealed victory for Diego Simeone’s side.

Atletico now face Real Madrid in the final on Sunday January 12.

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Lionel Messi was unhappy with his teammates and their “childish” mistakes after FC Barcelona sunk to defeat against Atletico Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup semifinal on Thursday.

Barca had dominated proceedings at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Saudi Arabia but conceded two sloppy goals in the final ten minutes to gift Atletico a 3-2 win.

Having led 2-1 in the 81st minute, goalkeeper Neto first conceded a clumsy penalty, bringing down Vitolo and allowing Alvaro Morata to level from the spot.

Five minutes later, poor defending saw Angel Correa go clean through on goal, before Neto failed to stop his tame effort, which looped off his gloves and over the line.

“We need to try and continue playing as well as we did today for the rest of the year, but make sure we don’t make the childish errors,” Messi told reporters after the defeat, according to Reuters.

“We controlled the game for around 80 minutes, we played at a high pace, we attacked all the time and created lots of chances. But in the last 10 minutes we made big and we let a game slip which we had under control.”

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Atletico opened the scoring on the night just a minute after half-time, as Koke prodded home from close range following a neat interchange with Correa.

Messi had Barcelona level in the 51st minute however – the Argentine impossibly wriggling free from two defenders in the box to slam the ball past Jan Oblak with his right boot.

Four defenders in front of him. Messi still scores. (via @ESPNFC) The Supercopa semifinal continues: https://t.co/Zm4oHvOjGc pic.twitter.com/GrIQYi7QTX — ESPN (@espn) January 9, 2020

The Argentine then had a goal disallowed for an adjudged handball, before Antoine Griezmann headed home against his former club to put the Catalans in the driving seat.

Barca had another goal disallowed in the 73rd minute, this time from Gerard Pique, before going on to lose the match in the closing stages.

The defeat continues what has been a poor start to 2020 for Ernesto Valverde’s side, having drawn 2-2 with local rivals Espanyol in La Liga on Saturday.

Messi, however, is confident things will improve.

“It’s normal that there is discontent when there’s a defeat and people feel the team is not playing as they would like,” he said.

“We have to be more united than ever, be a strong group and move forward. We are top of La Liga but we have not been playing well recently so we are going to try and recover our best play so we can stay at the top.”

Atletico will take on Real Madrid in the final of the Super Cup on Sunday, January 12.

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