Real Madrid destroyed a hapless Valencia side with a five-star
first half performance at the Mestalla with Angel Di Maria and Cristiano
Ronaldo both scoring braces to add to Gonzalo Higuain’s effort.
Higuain opened the scoring in the ninth minute, just moments after
missing an easier opportunity. Mesut Ozil surged forward in acres of
space after a poor corner from Valencia and his through ball found Di
Maria – who pulled it back for Higuain to make no mistake with a cool
left foot finish into the bottom corner.
Higuain almost went from hero to villain later on in the first half
when a risky challenge saw Jonas go down in the box. There was slight
contact but the referee deemed Jonas to have dived and produced a yellow
card for the Valencia player rather than the penalty the home crowd
were screaming for.
Valencia huffed and puffed, backed up by a noisy crowd, but they were too open
to Madrid’s rapid counter attacks. Sami Khedira should have made them
pay when he found himself one-on-one with Diego Alves, but he shot
straight at the goalkeeper and the ball was deflected over the crossbar
for a corner.
Khedira had another gilt-edged opportunity to make it 2-0 a few minutes later but he was again foiled by Lopez.
The second goal came soon after, however, when Di Maria tapped in
from less than a yard out after some brilliant work from Ronaldo down
the left hand side – which left the Valencia defenders chasing shadows.
Ronaldo punished the faltering home defence almost straight from the
kick-off to make it 3-0, drilling the ball past Lopez at the near post
after a simple through ball from Ozil and some more awful defending from
Valencia.
Things went from bad to worse for the hosts when Ronaldo got his
second and Madrid’s fourth with a powerful finish with his right foot
after an exquisite touch from Ozil in the box.
Yet another Ozil assist set up Di Maria for the fifth just before
half-time. As they had done throughout the half, Madrid cut Valencia
open at will with German midfielder Ozil sending the Argentine clean
through – and a cool finish saw boos ring out around the Mestalla from
the home fans.
Valencia started the second half well with Pablo Piatti crashing a
shot off the bar and Adil Rami unlucky to see his header cleared off the
line from a corner. Tino Costa also went close a few minutes later with
a powerful shot from outside the box.
The game
soon ended as a spectacle though, with both managers making substitutes
to key personnel ahead of Wednesday’s Copa del Rey quarter-final second
leg between the two sides. Valencia will hope to put this result behind
them quickly, but their chances of overturning a two-goal deficit in
the cup against Jose Mourinho’s team seem slim based on this
performance.
Madrid will take a lot of confidence from this result in what has
been an up and down season. The defending champions are now 15 points
behind Barcelona, after the Catalan side’s shock defeat to Real Sociedad
defeat on Saturday.
That is still a huge gap to the top of the table,
but Real will be pleased to have kept the deficit to their second
placed local rivals Atletico Madrid to a slightly more manageable seven
points.
MATCH STATS
Real Madrid controlled the ball for 44.1% of the match of play while completing 240 passes and getting off 13 shots.
Di María was in the thick of the action all day, and ended the match with 35 completed passes.
The three attempts by Higuaín were the most of any Real Madrid player.
Valencia enjoyed possession for 55.9% of the game.
Xotos had 20 shots, including four on target.
Tino Costa had five shots for Valencia, more than any of his team-mates.
No comments:
Post a Comment