Cristiano Ronaldo netted two goals and set up another to power Real Madrid’s blistering attack to a 5-0 demolition of Valencia in La Liga on Sunday, while Atletico Madrid chipped into Barcelona’s lead by maintaining their perfect record at home.
Real decided the match by halftime with braces by Ronaldo and Angel di Maria after Gonzalo Higuain had opened the scoring.
Atletico, meanwhile, eased to a 2-0 win over Levante UD, despite losing striker Radamel Falcao to injury for their 11th win in 11 home games this season, breathing an inkling of life into the title chase.
Photo: Reuters
Atletico took advantage of Barcelona’s first league defeat of the season the day before to reduce the gap to the pacesetters to eight points.
Real Madrid’s best performance, and arguably the best first half played by any team in Spain this season, of its otherwise trouble-filled league campaign left Jose Mourinho’s team in third place, 15 points adrift of Barcelona.
Real finally resembled the side that strolled through the league last season en route to the championship with a record haul of points (100) and goals (121).
Real had already beaten Valencia 2-0 just five days before in the first leg of their Copa del Rey quarter-final. The two teams meet for a third time in nine days tomorrow in the return leg.
Valencia’s collapse was complete. Their attack was toothless, the midfield sloppy with the ball, and their defense uncoordinated and repeatedly undone with the simplest of through passes into wide open spaces behind the back line.
However, Real were brutally efficient, quick to recover the ball and clinical in their finishing, whether on the break or elaborating an attack against a set defense.
Higuain got Madrid rolling in the ninth minute by making up for an earlier miss when he trailed Di Maria and fired his back-pass beyond goalkeeper Diego Alves.
After Sami Khedira had squandered a pair of clear looks on goal, Ronaldo doubled the visitors’ advantage in the 35th minute by running onto a long pass, cutting back — first to his right, then to his left — to give Di Maria time to arrive on the far side, before crossing for the winger to tap home.
Just seconds after the restart Valencia were again retrieving the ball from their net after Real robbed the ball and in two passes left Ronaldo sprinting free to stab the ball between Diego Alves and his near post to make it 3-0.
The flurry of goals left Valencia and the fans at the Estadio Mestalla shell-shocked and the visitors just kept pouring it on.
Ronaldo whipped in a vicious volley in the 41st minute after Mesut Oezil had deftly knocked down Di Maria’s lobbed pass and just before the halftime whistle Di Maria was inexplicably left unmarked on the break to take a pass from Oezil and casually slip the ball under the helpless Diego Alves.
Ronaldo’s brace gave him 18 goals in the league, tied with Falcao. Barcelona’s Lionel Messi leads the competition with 29 goals through 20 rounds.
Elsewhere on Sunday, CA Osasuna beat visiting RC Deportivo de La Coruna 2-1 to move off the bottom of the standings and sink their rivals into last place, while forward Oscar Gonzalez scored one goal and set up another to steer midtable Real Valladolid to a 2-0 home win over Real Zaragoza.
Earlier at the Estadio Vicente Calderon, Adrian Lopez broke through for Atletico by capping a team buildup in the 32nd minute. Jorge “Koke” Resurrecion then put the result beyond doubt in the 61st, four minutes after Falcao walked off clutching the upper part of his left leg.
Atletico coach Diego Simeone said Falcao would be sidelined for about three weeks.
Simeone’s Atletico, whose excellent season has been overshadowed by Barca’s apparently unstoppable march toward reclaiming the domestic crown, is on a club-record run of 18 consecutive home wins in all competitions. They have also outscored their visitors 17-0 in their past six league matches.
“Numbers are important, but we can’t pause to admire them,” Simeone said. “The most important thing is to keep going forward game by game until we see how far we can go.”
Lin Yun-ju on Thursday handed Taiwan two key victories as they advanced to the semi-finals of the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals in London. The Taiwan men’s table tennis team beat Sweden 3-2 in five singles matches. The 24-year-old Lin, Taiwan’s top-ranked player at world No. 7 and nicknamed the “Silent Assassin,” opened the tie by defeating world No. 2 Truls Moregard 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 13-11) before clinching the deciding fifth match with a 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 11-5) win over Anton Kallberg to hand his team the overall victory. Kuo Guan-hong put Taiwan up 2-0 with a 3-2 (4-11, 11-8, 8-11,
Aryna Sabalenka on Thursday said that she hoped she would be able to play tennis under the Belarusian flag after the International Olympic Committee lifted its ban on the country’s athletes competing in the Olympics. World No. 1 Sabalenka has had to compete under a neutral banner as a consequence of her country’s support for Russia following its ally’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The IOC earlier on Thursday lifted its ban on Belarusian athletes competing in the Olympics, although restrictions on Russian athletes remain in place. Asked whether the women’s tour would drop the ban on her representing her country, Sabalenka said:
China’s Wu Yize on Monday won the World Snooker Championship for the first time with a dramatic 18-17 victory over Shaun Murphy in the final. Wu held his nerve to seal his thrilling triumph in a tense last frame shoot-out at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre. The 22-year-old is the second Chinese player to win the world title after Zhao Xintong beat Mark Williams to make history as the first Asian to lift the trophy last year. Wu is also the second-youngest player to be crowned world champion at the Crucible after Stephen Hendry, who was 21 when he won in 1990. “I have been trying
Real Madrid announced on Friday they had fined Aurelien Tchouameni and Federico Valverde 500,000 euros (US$588,000) each after a training ground clash that saw Valverde transported for medical care. The club did not impose any sporting sanctions on the two players, saying in a statement that the fine “thereby concludes the internal procedures” launched against them. Valverde is going to miss today’s Clasico against Barcelona as a result of the head injury he suffered during the altercation. The club said he would be out for up to two weeks. Tchouameni took part in training on Friday and could feature at Camp
RSS