Real Valladolid beat La Liga leaders Barcelona 3-1 on Tuesday, which helped their chances of staying in La Liga. The home team deserved to win, and they did. They moved up to 17th place and are now three points ahead of the bottom three teams.
Valladolid defeat champions Barcelona to boost LaLiga survival prospects
In the second minute, Andreas Christensen, a defender for Barcelona, headed the ball into his own nett. This put Valladolid on their way. Cyle Larin scored the second goal from the penalty spot after Gonzalo Plata was fouled in the box by Eric Garcia.
The Ecuadorian winger scored the third goal on the break. Robert Lewandowski, who has scored the most goals in La Liga, got one back for the Catalans in the last few minutes.
Raphinha, a winger for Barcelona, sent Vinicius Junior, a winger for Real Madrid and also from Brazil, a message of support when he was taken off in the second half. On Sunday at their home ground, Mestalla.
Valencia fans were rude to Vinicius because of his race. “I didn’t know he was going to do it, but I think it’s a good message, because racism has to end,” Barcelona player Frenkie de Jong told DAZN after Raphinha took off his shirt to show the message after being taken out of the game.
Before the game, players from both teams held up a sign that said “Racists out of football” as part of an effort by La Liga and the Spanish football league in response to the abuse on Sunday.
Barcelona’s young playmaker Pablo Torre started for the first time in La Liga. He had a good game, but his team as a whole was slow and lost for the second time in a row. Xavi told reporters, “Pablo had a good game.
He was good at his position, made a lot of good passes, and worked well with Robert.” Marc-Andre ter Stegen is still trying to break the La Liga mark of 26 clean sheets. He has 25 clean sheets with two games left. “In the first half, we weren’t very good.
Two goals were scored against us because of mistakes we made. We had a goal, and now that we’ve reached it, our focus has dropped,” Xavi said. “We’ve had a great season, but we need to do better for our fans and to say goodbye to (Sergio) Busquets.
Real Sociedad has one foot in the Champions League for next season after beating 10-man Almeria 1-0. Takefusa Kubo’s goal in the first half put Imanol Alguacil’s fourth-place team eight points ahead of Villarreal, which is in fifth and plays Cadiz on Wednesday.
After 36 minutes, Almeria forwards Luis Suarez was sent off for a rough hit on defender Robin Le Normand. Kubo scored a great goal by cutting in from the right and shooting the ball into the top left corner as time ran out in the first half.
Alexander Sorloth could have made it 2-0 for La Real late in the game, but his shot went just wide. Ander Barrenetxea scored. Real Sociedad hasn’t been in Europe’s top competition since the 2013–14 season.
They can get there if Villarreal doesn’t win any of their last three games or if they get two more points. If Almeria loses, they will be 15th, four points above the bottom of the table. Celta Vigo is in 14th place and tied 1-1 at home with Girona. They are five points above the bottom three teams.
