Kylian Mbappe struck twice when Real Madrid prevented Celta Vigo with an exciting 3-2 victory to stay in view of the Le Liga Barcelona leaders on Sunday. After the Catalans won a return victory in Valladolid on Saturday, Madrid survived a fight from the end of Celta to maintain the gap of four points before next Sunday. The reigning champions Madrid, secondly, took an advance of three goals, but were allowed to hang on to the Santiago Bernabeu against a team of Celta seventh and hoping to qualify for European football next season.
“The game seemed finished … You must remember that we are without six defenders and we are not always able to resolve these things,” said Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti.
“Yes, it could have been better treated, we suffered a little, but it’s a great victory.”
The defense of the Madrid Champions League collapsed and Los Blancos was also beaten in the final of Copa del Rey against Barcelona last week, but Los Blancos still hopes to revise the Hansi Flick team at La Liga.
“We had a very good half (but) … We collapsed, these things cannot happen, it happened to us a lot,” admitted the Real Madrid midfielder, Fede Valverde, on the club’s television channel.
“We have left a lot of minutes to make themselves comfortable and they are an excellent team and they put us in a difficult situation.”
The Acelotti team entered the match with a series of defensive injuries, but after having survived a first wave of chances of Celta took control, with Arda Guller, Turkish, pulling the strings.
With Rodrygo goes out with an illness, the young person started in his place and fully took advantage of it.
Guller led an effort of large spectacular general costs in the first stages, showing that his ambition has no limits.
The former defender of Barcelona, Marcos Alonso, headed right next to it and then forced a judgment of Thibaut Courtois, as Celta threatened.
Aurelien Tchouamed managed when he was well placed at the other end, while Madrid stifled the visitors.
‘Last chance’
Madrid opened the scoring score after 33 minutes, when the playmaker intelligently worked a little space in the box, then brilliantly wrapped a strike in front of the scope of Vicente Guaita.
Mbappe doubled Madrid’s advance after 39 minutes at the net end of a quick breakaway.
Courtois saved from Borja Iglesias and immediately Madrid advanced, Bellingham making Mbappe on the right.
The French superstar mercilessly slipped in front of Guaita just inside the region.
Barely three minutes after the start of the second half, Mbappe again struck for his 24th season of the season of the season, putting a behind the top scorer, Robert Lewandowski in Barcelona.
Guller was the creator, playing in the attacker with a perfectly weighted ball and Mbappe finished low with a stroke of his left boot.
It seemed that the match had been won for Madrid, but Javier Rodriguez brought Celta in it with an ending end after a corner was wrongly awarded to Celta.
Lucas Vazquez blocked the pablo Duran feedback effort on the line, but Rodriguez was on site to jump.
The introduction of Iago Aspas out of the bench for the Galicians immediately gave them more attack and he produced a superb pass for Williot Swedberg to split a second pass on Courtois.
The Belgian goalkeeper had his heart in his mouth a few minutes later when Duran’s shot slipped with his hands and could have wiggled through the line behind him if he had not slowed down on the grass.
If Madrid had dropped points, it would have allowed Barcelona to raise the title next weekend with a clasico victory.
“This is the match of the year for us, the last chance for us to win La Liga,” said Valverde.
“We will do our best to take the three points.”
Elsewhere, Real Betis has maintained the pressure on Villarreal in the race for the fifth place of qualification in the Champions League.
Betis, sixth, snatched a 2-1 victory in Espanyol with two late goals, including the winner of Antony’s 91st minute to move a point behind the yellow submarine.
Athletic Bilbao, fourth, shared a tireless draw with the real Sociedad in a Basque Derby confrontation.
(With the exception of the title, this story has not been published by NDTV staff and is published from a unionized flow.)
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