A weekend of epic implications looms in Spain this Saturday as Atlético Madrid and Barcelona face off for sole possession of first place a top the Spanish league. Both teams are currently tied for first.

Each team finds itself on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of confidence heading into their match at the Camp Nou in Barcelona. Atlético was stunned during the week in their Copa del Rey tournament match against Celta Vigo, losing 3-2 at home and thus losing the aggregate 3-2 after drawing 0-0 in Vigo. Barça meanwhile easily dispatched Athletic Bilbao 3-1 in the final leg of their Cope del Rey matchup.

Atleti are in somewhat of a confidence crisis of late, as before their home loss to Celta Vigo, they ended their home match with Sevilla in a scoreless draw. Though who knows, maybe getting away from the friendly confines of the Vicente Calderón will do them some good.

Each teams feature drastically differing styles of play. While Barcelona strive to retain possession of the ball and play wide open soccer, Diego Simeone has his men playing pressing defense while looking for the counter attack. Simeone's Atletico teams have a trademark brand of physicality that has given Barcelona fits in recent years, although Atlético has never had to deal with the Catalan's new fearsome trident of attackers. Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar altogether present a formidible problem for Atlético's backline.

Making his return to the club where he made his name will be Arda Turan. THe Turkish international likely won't festure in the starting XI for Barça, but he could play the role of supersub to combat Atlético's physicality with a tough physical style of his own.

At the end of the day, expect Atlético Madrid to return to the capital with their confidence sunk even lower. With all three forwards rolling on all cylinders in unison, los rojiblancos simply have no answer even if they are able to hold them to just one or two goals.

Watching from a distance will be Real Madrid, who host the city of Barcelona's other team Espanyol at home. Madrid stumbled last weekend in Sevilla against Real Betis, but hopefully Zinedine Zidane learned from his first managerial loss and will have his players coming out hungry for another goal fiesta against Espanyol. With a win they not only keep pace with whomever wins between Atlético and Barcelona, but come closer to to leapfrogging the loser. In a perfect world, Atleti and Barça would end their match in a draw, bringing Real to within two points of first place should they win their match.

Things are uncharacteristically heated in the La Liga race for this time of year, and it doesn't figure to let up as we still have another edition of El Clásico and the Madrid derby coming up this spring.

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Photo: Flickr/El Renzo