Real Sociedad became the latest team to join the tight title race in La Liga.
Taking advantage of two second-half penalties, Real Sociedad defeated Atletico Madrid 2-0 on Saturday.
Forward Carlos Vela converted a 54th-minute penalty and striker Willian Jose also scored from the spot in the 75th to give Real Sociedad their fourth win in five matches and their fourth consecutive win at home.
Photo: AP
“The truth is we are going through an incredible moment,” Vela said. “We know there is a lot of the season left, but we are enjoying this moment and we want to be fighting for great things in the end.”
Atletico remained in place third, while Real Sociedad were sixth.
It was the second loss in three league games for Atletico, who had been held scoreless only twice before Saturday’s game.
“There are no excuses, they were better than us,” Atletico defender Juanfran Torres said. “We have time to prepare for the match against Madrid. We have to keep our heads high and certainly we will win at home.”
Atletico and Real Madrid play the derby at the Vicente Calderon on Saturday next week after the international break.
Atletico had the league lead until a 1-0 loss at Sevilla two matches ago, a result that dropped Diego Simone’s team to fifth place. They rebounded with a 4-2 win over Malaga, but missed the chance to join neighbors Real at the top of the standings after the loss.
Forward Kevin Gameiro had an opportunity to give Atletico a 1-0 lead in the first half, but his shot from inside the penalty area struck the post in the pouring rain in the northern Spanish city of San Sebastian.
“We had a great first half and created good scoring chances, especially the one with Gameiro, but in the second half they started better and we could not find a way to even up the match,” Simeone said.
In the early game yesterday, Gareth Bale hit both goals as Real Madrid extended their lead at the top of La Liga to five points with a 3-0 win over CD Leganes.
Bale signed one of the most lucrative deals in soccer history on Monday last week to keep him at the European champions until 2021 and the Welshman earned his bumper new wage as he struck twice in seven minutes just before halftime, before Alvaro Morata added a third 14 minutes from time.
Barcelona could close to within two points at the top, but they faced a huge challenge when they due to travel to fourth-placed Sevilla later yesterday.
Bale also scored Real’s fastest ever UEFA Champions League goal last week against Legia Warsaw, but his fine strike in the Polish capital was forgotten as Real blew a two-goal lead to draw 3-3.
There was to no such comeback from La Liga newcomers Leganes on their first ever league visit to the Santiago Bernabeu after Bale had awoken Madrid from their slumber in the first 30 minutes.
Bale outsprinted the Leganes defense as he latched onto Isco’s through-ball and rounded Jon Ander Serantes, before slotting home from a narrow angle.
His second was a scrappier finish as Bale pounced on a loose ball inside the penalty area from a Toni Kroos free-kick to bundle home from close range.
Real received a huge boost ahead of a hugely demanding two-month stretch after the upcoming international break when Luka Modric made his return as a second-half substitute after a month out due to knee surgery.
Morata rounded off a comfortable afternoon for Zinedine Zidane’s men when he collected a Kroos pass before firing home at the near post.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier