A day after seeing their rivals falter, Sevilla took care of business.
Sevilla on Sunday moved past Atletico Madrid and Barcelona to go top of La Liga by beating Real Valladolid 1-0.
Atletico and Barcelona had played to a 1-1 draw on Saturday, opening the way for Sevilla to take the lead with a home win.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“We have to enjoy this,” Sevilla coach Pablo Machin said. “We have to enjoy it for now and then we will get back to preparing for the difficulties that lie ahead.”
Sevilla also benefited from the setbacks of other teams near the top of the standings.
Deportivo Alaves had a chance to go top on Friday, but lost 1-0 at CD Leganes, while Real Madrid are sixth after a shock 3-0 defeat at Sociedad Deportiva Eibar on Saturday. That result ended the team’s perfect run under coach Santiago Solari and left them six points off the top.
Sevilla, who had already led the league after the eighth round, have 26 points from 13 matches, one point more than Barcelona and two more than Atletico. Fourth-placed Alaves are three points back.
“We knew we had an opportunity today and we took advantage of it,” said forward Andre Silva, who scored Sevilla’s winner. “This is the result of our hard work day after day. We have to try to keep it up.”
Looking to avoid their own setback, Sevilla controlled the match from the start at the Estadio Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan. They did not create many significant scoring chances, but were always closest to scoring.
Silva got the winner with a 30th-minute header from a cross by Pablo Sarabia, giving Sevilla their seventh straight home win in all competitions.
It was the eighth league goal for the Portuguese forward, who had not scored for Sevilla in five matches.
Valladolid had a 74th-minute goal disallowed for offside and their biggest chance of the match was a stoppage-time shot by substitute Enes Unal that forced a save by Sevilla goalkeeper Tomas Vaclik.
The team owned by former Brazil striker Ronaldo have not won in two matches and dropped to 12th.
Elsewhere, Athletic Bilbao’s struggles continued with a 1-1 home draw against Getafe, extending their winless streak to 12 matches.
The result left Athletic with 11 points from 13 matches, just inside the relegation zone.
The Basque Country club have not won since their first league match in August, enduring eight draws and four losses since.
They opened the scoring with a goal by defender Peru Nolaskoain in the 67th minute, but Jaime Mata equalized for the visitors in the 77th.
It could have been worse for Athletic if Getafe had been awarded a penalty late in stoppage-time after Mata was held by a defender inside the penalty area, but the referee ended the match before a video review.
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