Barcelona will kick off Sunday’s La Liga match against Real Oviedo in second place in the standings thanks to Real Madrid’s hard-fought 2-0 win away to fourth-place Villarreal on Saturday night.
Álvaro Arbeloa’s men weren’t very impressive and mostly took advantage of the Yellow Submarine’s mistakes to create chances, and that’s how they scored the winner when Pape Gueye failed to clear a fairly simple cross inside the box and Kylian Mbappé was quickest to the loose ball to find the net early in the second half.
Gerard Moreno missed a giant opportunity to equalizealmost immediately after the goal, and that turned out to be the home team’s best chance as the rest of the game had a ton of transitions and fouls but very little quality from either side, until Mbappé was fouled by Pedraza inside the box and scored the penalty in added time to seal Madrid’s victory.
Los Blancos have now won five straight in the league and three in a row in all competitions since the debacle at Albacete on Arbeloa’s coaching debut, and they are league leaders again for at least a few hours before Barça have a chance to reclaim top spot on Sunday if they are able to beat bottom of the table Oviedo.
