Valencia steal 2-1 win at Real Madrid

Valencia won 2-1 at Real Madrid’s home ground in the Spanish League on Saturday.

Real Madrid are now on 63 points, three behind leaders Barcelona, who play Real Betis on Sunday morning IST. Valencia, meanwhile, moved up to 15th with 34 points.

The match was only 11 minutes old when the home team, Real, were awarded a penalty. The referee decided that Kylian Mbappé had been fouled by César Tarrega in the penalty area. A review using VAR technology later confirmed the referee’s decision.

This time, the penalty was taken by Vinicius Jr., but the Brazilian’s kick was guessed by Valencia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili.

Los Che were the first to score in the 15th minute. From a corner, Mouctar Diakhaby headed the ball into the goal, past Real’s goalkeeper Fran Gonzalez. 1-0 to Valencia.

Diakhaby almost became a hero, but then a mistake he made almost made him look like a scapegoat. In the 21st minute, he tried to clear the ball, but he ended up hitting it into his own net. Luckily for Diakhaby, the goal was disallowed by the referee because after a VAR review, it was found that Mbappé was in an offside position. The visitors were winning 1-0 at halftime.

After five minutes of the second half, Real Madrid finally scored to make it 1-1. It started with Luka Modric’s corner, then the ball was passed to Jude Bellingham for Vinicius to score, making up for his missed penalty in the first half.

This equaliser made the team feel more confident. They had several good chances to score, with Mbappé’s shot and Federico Valverde’s shot, but they missed both.

In the 90+5th minute, Valencia scored a late goal to catch Real off guard. From a counter-attack, Rafa Mir sent a cross that was met by Hugo Duro’s header, restoring the visitors’ lead.

Real had a good chance to get a point, but defender Antonio Rudiger’s long-range shot was well saved by goalkeeper Mamardashvili.

Apart from Valencia, two other visiting teams also won their games on Saturday. Espanyol, in 16th place, won 4-0 at Rayo Vallecano, and Alaves, in 17th place, won 1-0 at Girona.

Espanyol scored two goals in each half. The Barcelona side took the lead through Leandro Cabrera in the 12th minute, before Roberto Fernandez added a second in the 16th minute.

After the break, Espanyol scored another two goals. Their third goal was scored by Javi Puado from the penalty spot in the 72nd minute, and Pere Milla scored the final goal of the match in the 90th minute.

Alaves won 1-0 at home to Girona, with the only goal coming from Carlos Vicente in the 61st minute. This was Alaves’ first win in their last three matches.

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