defeating Alaves 2-1<\/a> to move closer to Spanish league leader Barcelona.<\/p>\nThe victory on Tuesday at the Bernabeu Stadium left Madrid six points behind Barcelona, which hosts sixth-placed Celta Vigo on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
It was Madrid\u2019s first game since it was eliminated by Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. Madrid lost 2-1 at home and 4-3 in Germany in the second leg. The team\u2019s last two Spanish league matches had been a 1-1 home draw against Girona and a 2-1 loss at Mallorca.<\/p>\n
It was a slow start for Madrid on Tuesday, and the crowd at the Bernabeu looked anxious as Alaves had a few scoring chances early. Part of the fans jeered as the team struggled. There were some boos after the final whistle, as well as after Alaves scored late.<\/p>\n
Mbappe broke the deadlock in the 30th minute with a shot that deflected off an Alaves defender and fooled goalkeeper Antonio Sivera. Mbappe, the league\u2019s leading scorer, with 24 goals, had not found the net in a league game since February.<\/p>\n
Vinicius added to Madrid\u2019s lead with a long-range strike in the 50th. The Brazil forward had not scored in his last six games between club and country.<\/p>\n
Alaves, sitting one point above the relegation zone, pulled one closer with a goal by Toni Mart\u00ednez in second-half stoppage time.<\/p>\n
Alaves has won only one of its last nine league matches. The lone triumph came at Celta Vigo in March.<\/p>\n
Madrid and Brazil defender Eder Militao had to be replaced just before halftime with an injury that Madrid said did not appear to be serious.<\/p>\n
Spain goalkeeper Unai Sim\u00f3n saved a penalty kick and made a few other key stops to help ninth-place Athletic Bilbao hold on for a 1-0 win against mid-table Osasuna at home.<\/p>\n
Mallorca drew 1-1 with visiting Valencia.<\/p>\n
Fifth-place Real Betis won 3-2 at 11th-place Girona, with Rodrigo Riquelme scoring an 80th-minute winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Real Madrid beat relegation-threatened Alaves 2-1 in La Liga to close the gap with leaders Barcelona to six…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,3456,527,44,561,7413,457,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-620411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-soccer","14":"tag-spain","15":"tag-sport","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}