Valencia: A hat-trick of penalties from Carlos Soler and an own goal made all the difference as Valencia thumped Real Madrid 4-1 in La Liga. The Los Blancos completely dominated the possession during the first 20 minutes before Karim Benzema gave Real Madrid their lead after a fine finish on 23 minutes.
Soler equalised for Valencia on 35 minutes in his second try, after his first try was saved and fortunately for him, it was retaken as VAR showed opposition players had come into the area before Soler’s first try. Raphael Varane’s own goal then gave the hosts lead on 43 minutes.
A controversial penalty against Marcelo, which was converted by Soler on 54 minutes yet again put the hosts forward. The final nail in the coffin came after Sergio Ramos was penalised for a handball on 63 minutes. Solar is the third player in La Liga to score three penalties in one match.
Valencia coach Javi Garcia said to the media, “It’s great to finally get the rewards of all the hard work we have been putting in recently without getting the results we deserved. I always felt we were competing well even if results weren’t going our way and we need to keep going down this path. This result will strengthen our belief in what we are doing and give the players confidence for the games ahead.”
After this loss, Real Madrid are stuck at 4th place in the table. Zinedine Zidane said. “We started the game well, the first half an hour, after the goal we dropped off and changed the dynamic. That could be a problem. Then a bit of everything happened, we had three penalties, an own goal. Today it’s difficult to understand our game. We started well and after they equalised, everything changed.
“There’s no justification, no excuses. The game changed. We started well, the first half-hour, then we dropped off. Three penalties, everything came together today against us, it’s a bad game and a bad day.”
