WATCH: Atletico Madrid lead 4-0 after Barcelona own goal, strikes from Griezmann, Lookman and Alvarez | OneFootball

Atletico Madrid and Barcelona are facing off in the first leg of their Copa del Rey semi-final tie, and there has been four goals inside the opening 45 minutes – both have gone the way of the home side at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano.

The deadlock was broken in rather bizarre circumstances. Minutes after making a brilliant save to deny Giuliano Simeone the opening goal, Barcelona goalkeeper Joan Garcia gifted it to Atleti. He failed to control a back-pass from Eric Garcia, and the ball rolled over the line before he could palm it away – it would not have mattered anyway, as the loose ball was turned home by Ademola Lookman.

8 minutes later, it would get even better for Atleti, who went 2-0 up. Nahuel Molina cut the ball back to Antoine Griezmann, who found the far corner against his former club to send the Riyadh Air Metropolitano into raptures.

It would go to 3-0 on 33 minutes, with Atleti scoring again. It came from another defensive error, and ended with Julian Alvarez slipping in Ademola Lookman to fire beyond Garcia.

Remarkably, the scoring was not done there for Atleti in the first half, as Julian Alvarez has finally ended his goal drought with a fine strike from the edge of the Barcelona penalty area to make it 4-0.

Barcelona’s task of securing a positive result in this first leg was already difficult due to the absences of Raphinha and Marcus Rashford, and their task looks increasingly hard now. Fortunately, they have plenty of time across the tie to bounce back, but right now, Atleti are in the ascendency by some way.