Real Madrid and Girona on Wednesday extended their impressive runs to reach the halfway point of La Liga’s season at the top of the standings.
Both teams won to reach 48 points after 19 games, with third-placed Atletico Madrid 10 points back. Real Madrid were ahead of Girona on a tiebreaker.
Barcelona had a chance to move within seven points of the leaders, with their game against Las Palmas to start after press time last night.
Photo: Reuters
Madrid edged RCD Mallorca 1-0 at home with a late goal by Antonio Rudiger in a match that marked the return of Vinicius Jr from injury.
Girona, the surprise team in Spanish soccer this season, defeated Atletico 4-3 with a winner by Ivan Martin in stoppage-time.
Alvaro Morata scored a hat-trick for Atletico, while Antoine Griezmann was held scoreless to remain tied with Luis Aragones as the club’s all-time top scorer with 173 goals.
Photo: AFP
Faced with another difficult challenge, Girona rose to the occasion yet again, overcoming Diego Simeone’s Atletico to show that they can be considered genuine title contenders.
Martin scored the winning goal one minute into stoppage-time, firing a left-footed shot into the top corner after fending off a series of Atletico defenders inside the area.
The hosts led 3-1 until Morata capped his hat-trick with an equalizer in the 54th minute. Valery Fernandez, Savinho and Daley Blind scored Girona’s other goals at Estadi Montilivi.
However, Girona manager Michel Sanchez insisted that his team cannot keep up with Real Madrid.
Sanchez said that the Catalan minnows, promoted to the top flight in 2022, are not in the same bracket as Spain’s big three and maintained that line after the remarkable triumph at home.
“We cannot keep up with Madrid’s rhythm, we don’t want to put that label on ourselves” of challengers, Michel told reporters. “To talk about bigger things, like the [UEFA] Champions League, we have to get to the last 10 matches ... then I’ll be ready to talk about our next objective.”
Michel said his team’s only goal at this point of the season was qualifying for European competition.
Winning the league “is not the objective, the objective is first to think game-by-game, and try to reach Europe, which would already be a success for us,” he said.
The team coached by Michel have the league’s best attack with 46 goals, four more than Real Madrid.
Meanwhile, Vinicius was back in action after an absence of nearly two months because of a muscle injury, but his side struggled in attack until Rudiger broke the deadlock with a header into the top corner after a well-placed corner taken by Luka Modric in the 78th minute.
“I’m very happy because it was an important goal and an important three points for us,” Rudiger said.
Elsewhere, RC Celta de Vigo defeated Real Betis Balompie 2-1 at home with a winner by Swedish teenager Williot Swedberg, while 19th-placed Granada defeated 18th-placed Cadiz 2-0.
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