La Liga’s dramatic title race took another turn as Real Madrid leapfrogged Barcelona into top spot with a 2-0 win against Villarreal.<\/p>\n
Kylian Mbappe took his tally for the season to 21 goals in 19 league outings with a close-range strike early in the second half and a penalty in injury-time.<\/p>\n
Both sides limited each other to half-chances during a tame first half, but Alvaro Arbeloa’s side looked energised after the break and scored almost immediately.<\/p>\n
Mbappe was on hand to smash the ball past Villarreal goalkeeper Luiz Junior from close range after Vinicius Junior’s low cross was cleared straight into his path.<\/p>\n
Some Villarreal players claimed that Vinicius carried the ball out of play earlier in the move, but the goal was cleared.<\/p>\n
The Brazilian looked sharp in the second half as Madrid began to dominate, but he could not score as his goalless run in La Liga extended to 13 games.<\/p>\n
Gerard Moreno should have pulled Villarreal level in the 62nd minute, but he whipped a shot over the bar when meeting a quick Dani Parejo free-kick unmarked.<\/p>\n
Mbappe secured victory in the fourth minute of stoppage time with a clipped penalty down the middle of the goal after he was fouled by Alfonso Pedraza.<\/p>\n
After the match, Mbappe confirmed, external<\/a> the Panenka-style penalty was for team-mate Brahim Diaz, who missed with a similar attempt in the Africa Cup of Nations final<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n Morocco’s Diaz had a tame effort saved in stoppage time with the match goalless, and opponents Senegal went on to win in extra time.<\/p>\n Real trailed Barcelona by four points when La Liga restarted in January, but a shock defeat for Hansi Flick’s side by Real Sociedad last weekend opened the door for Real to pile on the pressure.<\/p>\n Los Blancos have won their last three games in all competitions under Arbeloa, who began his tenure after replacing Xabi Alonso with a shock 3-2 defeat by second-division side Albacete in the last-16 of the Copa del Rey.<\/p>\n Arbeloa’s side hold a two-point lead at the top, but Barcelona will return to the summit if they defeat bottom side Real Oviedo on Sunday (15:15 GMT).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"La Liga’s dramatic title race took another turn as Real Madrid leapfrogged Barcelona into top spot with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-435580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}