Diego Costa opens up on brutal battles with Barcelona legends: ‘Against them, I only defended’

Few strikers in modern football were as relentless as Diego Costa. During his peak years at Atletico Madrid under Diego Simeone, he became one of the most feared forwards in La Liga, exhausting defenders physically and mentally with his pressing, aggression and refusal to yield.

Yet even Costa concedes that two opponents forced him into an unfamiliar role. Reflecting on his repeated duels with Barcelona’s Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique between 2008 and 2014, the striker offered a wry admission: “Against Barça, I only defended; we hardly touched the ball against them.”

The Puyol-Pique axis, both La Masia graduates, anchored a side that defined an era of domestic and European dominance, particularly under Pep Guardiola. Costa, renowned for terrorising back lines, found himself in reverse gear whenever Atletico faced the Catalan giants. “Pique and Puyol would beat me up and then apologise, and I would say to them, ‘Don’t apologise, insult me,’” he recalled, laughing at the memory.

Results underlined Barcelona’s superiority: in six seasons Atletico toppled them only four times. One of those rare exceptions came in May 2014, when a 1-1 draw at Camp Nou clinched the La Liga title for Simeone’s side, a moment Costa ranks among the sweetest of his career.

For all his usual attacking menace, Costa’s candid recollection highlights the unique challenge posed by Barcelona’s legendary defence, a unit that could even turn a predator into a perennial defender.