Madrid, January 1 (IANS). The match between FC Barcelona and Espanyol ended tied 1-1. Marcos Alonso scored for Barcelona in the sixth minute, while Joselu’s second-half penalty saved a point for Espanyol.
Barça were unable to create chances in the first half, which will also be remembered for the chaotic performance of referee Mateu Lahoj, who lost control of the match in the last 10 minutes, displaying seven yellow and three red cards. VAR corrected a straight red card shown to Espanyol defender Leandro Cabrara, the Xinhua news agency reports.
Barcelona are now level on points with Real Madrid, who beat Valladolid 2-0 on Friday with two goals from Karim Benzema, the first from the penalty spot.
Real Sociedad consolidated their third-place position with a 2–0 home win against Osasuna thanks to a 22nd-minute opening goal from Brice Mendez. Mendez then set up Alexandre Sorloth for La Real’s second on the minute. 64.
Juan Foyth’s header in the 88th minute gave Villarreal a 2-1 win in a tough derby against Valencia.
Edinson Cavani put Valencia ahead in the 21st minute of the game, but Samuel Chukwueze scored after an excellent counterattack just before the break.
Both teams had chances after the break, but a Foyth header after a mistake by Valencia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili decided the game.
HMA/RR
Disclaimer: This is news posted directly from the IANS news feed. With this, no editing has been done by the bhaskarhindi.com team. In such a situation, any responsibility regarding the related news will rest solely with the news agency.