Real Madrid, the defending champion, returned to the winning streak before his London trip, Tuesday, to face Chelsea in the second leg of the Champions League final, by defeating its Andalusian host, Cadiz, 2-0, on Saturday, in the twenty-ninth stage of the Spanish Football League.
And in light of Barcelona’s tweeting in the lead and its march towards winning the title for the first time since 2019, by moving away by 10 points from its rival before its Sunday match with its host Getafe, Real is wrestling with its neighbor Atletico for the runner-up, and it moved away from the latter by five points temporarily following making up for its fall in the last stage once morest Villarreal. at home 2-3.
Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti’s team prepared well for its match on Tuesday at Stamford Bridge, where it will try to build on its victory in the first leg in Madrid, with the double of Frenchman Karim Benzema and Marco Asisno, in order to reach the semi-finals and continue the campaign to defend its continental title.
In the absence of Brazilian Vinicius Junior and German Toni Kroos due to two minor injuries and Croatian Luka Modric sitting on the bench, Real dominated his match with Cadiz, who had not defeated the Royal Club in the league among its fans since 1991 (1-0), and threatened its host’s goal on more than one occasion, the first of which Through Asensio, who collided with the brilliance of goalkeeper David Khel (16), who returned and shone in the face of Benzema (18).
Then the pace slowed down until the 35th minute, when Benzema’s luck ran out following his shot bounced off the crossbar, then the royal club’s chances rolled in and goalkeeper Khel, who prevented Ancelotti’s men from entering the halftime break while they were ahead, shone.
The situation did not change in the second half until Al-Faraj came from Nacho, who liberated the Royal Club thanks to a shot he fired from outside the area into the net following a pass from Frenchman Aurelien Chouamini (74), before Asensio secured the three points with a second goal a few seconds later with a shot from inside the area following a pass. From Uruguayan Federico Valverde (76).
Betis benefits from the fall of Villarreal and Sociedad
Valladolid braked its host, Villarreal, who is fighting for a qualifying position in the Champions League, by dropping it in its stronghold 2-1 with a Moroccan double.
The “Yellow Submarine” team entered the meeting with its guest, who is struggling to get away from the relegation zone, on the back of three consecutive victories, including two at the expense of Real Sociedad IV 2-0 and Real Madrid, and without defeat for six consecutive stages.
However, Valladolid surprised him from the start of the match when he opened the scoring in the second minute with a goal by Moroccan Salim Amlah, who was also behind the goal of advancing with two clean goals by passing the ball to his compatriot Jawad Al-Yamiq following a counterattack (34).
Coach Quique Setien’s team waited until the 74th minute to return to the atmosphere of the match with a goal for French substitute Etienne Capouet, but following that he was unable to reach the net of his guest. Rather, the latter was the closest to scoring on more than one occasion, but he collided with the brilliance of veteran goalkeeper Pepe Reina in a match completed by Valladolid. Without his Uruguayan coach, Paolo Pizzolano, following he was fired for protesting once morest the hosts’ goal.
Villarreal player Dani Parejo said, “The result does not reflect what happened in the ninety minutes. I think Villarreal was better than Valladolid in every respect. We leave the field feeling sad and disappointed with the result, but we feel that football has not been fair to us.”
And with the tenth defeat of the season, Villarreal’s balance froze at 47 points, 4 points behind Real Sociedad, who failed to consolidate its fourth-last position to qualify for the Champions League by losing the Basque derby with its host and neighbor Athletic Bilbao with two clean goals scored by the Ghanaian-Spaniard Iñaki Williams (33 and 70), raising the score His team rose to 43 points in seventh place, while Valladolid’s balance became 32 in the fourteenth place temporarily, 5 points behind the relegation zone.
Real Betis was the biggest beneficiary of the fall of Villarreal and Real Sociedad, as it snatched fifth place from the first and became three points away from the second following returning to the path of victories that it deviated from in the past two stages, by defeating its guest Espanyol with three goals from Yossi Perez (27) and Juan Miranda. (34) and the Portuguese William Carvalho (69), once morest a goal by Mexican Cesar Montes (49) that was not enough to spare the Catalan guest from his sixth defeat in a row, so his score froze at 27 points in the nineteenth place.