Madrid: Real Madrid returned to the top of La Liga on Saturday night thanks to a narrow 1-0 win away to Getafe. Eder Militao’s header from a corner in the third minute of the game was enough to give Carlo Ancelotti’s side all three points ahead of FC Barcelona’s home match against Celta Vigo on Sunday night.
The VAR overturned a decision to award Real Madrid a penalty for a supposed foul on Vinicius Jr and ruled out a ‘goal’ from Rodrygo.
The arrival of coach Jorge Sampaoli as the replacement for Julen Lopetegui looked as if it would bring an immediate result for Sevilla as Oliver Torres opened the scoring in the third minute of their 1-1 draw at home to Athletic Club Bilbao, reports Xinhua.
However, after withstanding a tough opening 15 minutes, Athletic dominated the rest of the match and Mikel Vesga’s powerful left foot shot in the second half, earned the Basques a well-deserved point to keep them third.
Athletic overcame a late scare when Ander Herrera was sent off in injury time for denying Erik Lamela a clear goalscoring opportunity, but Sevilla wasted the resulting free kick.
Atletico Madrid moved into fourth with a tough 2-1 win at home to Girona, with Angel Correa netting both of their goals in the 5th and 48th minute, while Rodrigo Riquelme scored for Girona in the 66th minute.
Almeria ended their four-match goal drought in emphatic style with a 3-1 win at home to Rayo Vallecano in which they were leading 3-0 after 39 minutes following goals from Lucas Robertone, Srdan Babic and El Bilal Toure, with Alejandro Catena netting a late consolation for Rayo.
Almeria’s former Rayo winger, Adri Embarba was sent off in the 87th minute.
On Friday night goals from Justin Kluivert and Mouctar Diakhaby gave Valencia a 2-1 win away to Osasuna in a bad-tempered match, which saw Osasuna’s Ruben Pena and Unai Garcia sent off along with Diakhaby.
–IANS