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Kylian Mbappé stayed calm to roll home a 100th-minute penalty and secure for Real Madrid a 2-1 win over nine-man Rayo Vallecano on Sunday in a spicy La Liga derby. Los Blancos’ victory cut Barcelona’s lead back to one point at the top of the table after the Spanish champions beat Elche on Saturday.
Vinícius Júnior scored early on for Madrid after Jude Bellingham limped off with an apparent hamstring injury. Jorge de Frutos pulled Rayo level early in the second half, prompting visible anger from the Madrid fans at their team. Frustration was averted when Mbappé netted from the spot following Pathé Ciss’s red card at the death.
Rayo also had Pep Chavarría sent off before the final whistle.
Madrid’s interim head coach, Álvaro Arbeloa, and Mbappé had begged fans to support the team after Real’s defeat at Benfica in midweek, but the Santiago Bernabéu crowd was in unforgiving mood.
The former Barcelona winger Ilias Akhomach fired narrowly wide early on – the atmosphere would have been further soured had his effort crept inside Thibaut Courtois’ post.
Madrid suffered an early setback as the England international Bellingham pulled up holding the back of his thigh, going off in agony.
Vinícius put the hosts ahead in the 15th minute, showing tidy footwork just inside the area before firing high over Augusto Batalla and into the net. Los Blancos were in charge but, despite taking the lead, their fans were not content and whistled the team in at the break.
They were even less impressed, minutes into the second half, when Rayo pulled level. Álvaro García nodded a cross down for De Frutos, a former Madrid youth player, to reach and drill home.
The visitors should have taken the lead after an hour when Andrei Ratiu ran through on goal with only Courtois to beat but the Belgian keeper made a superb save to deny him.
Mbappé came centimetres away from putting Madrid in front when Batalla rushed out of his goal, with the French forward knocking the ball around him but then hitting the bar from distance.
Rayo made life harder for themselves when the midfielder Ciss was sent off for an ugly foul on Madrid’s Dani Ceballos. Eduardo Camavinga headed against a post as Arbeloa’s side turned the screw, before nine minutes of stoppage time were added on.
With the clock ticking down, Madrid were awarded a penalty when Nobel Mendy clumsily fouled Brahim Díaz, and La Liga’s top scorer, Mbappé, dispatched it to snatch three points for his side. Rayo finished the match with nine men after Chavarría was shown a second yellow card for shoving Rodrygo.
Serhou Guirassy scored twice in the second half as Borussia Dortmund came from behind to beat the Bundesliga’s bottom club, Heidenheim, 3-2 on Sunday and move six points behind the leaders, Bayern Munich.
Waldemar Anton put the nervy hosts in front but Julian Niehues scored either side of half-time to give Heidenheim the lead.
Guirassy had scored only one Bundesliga goal in 10 games since October but grabbed two in the space of two minutes to put Dortmund back in front.
Guirassy missed a late penalty but Dortmund, who were 11 points behind Bayern at Christmas, held on to drag themselves back into the title race.
Inter extended their lead at the top of Serie A to eight points with Sunday’s 2-0 win at Cremonese, a match that was marred by away fans nearly hitting the hosts’ goalkeeper Emil Audero with a firecracker.
Lautaro Martínez and Piotr Zielinski’s first-half goals were enough for Inter to extend their unbeaten league run to 11 matches and pile pressure on their nearest challengers, Milan, who face Bologna on Tuesday.
Inter again comfortably dealt with one of the division’s lesser lights, their consistency against the lower-ranked teams a large part of the reason why Cristian Chivu’s team have collected 31 points from those 11 fixtures.
But a positive evening for Inter almost took a darker turn when Audero fell to the turf following the arrival of the firecracker from among the Inter fans massed behind his goal. The match was stopped for a few minutes and for a brief moment it appeared Audero had been directly struck by the explosive, which went off near him in the penalty area.
Fortunately a stunned Audero had only suffered minor injuries to his leg and was able to continue, and the match finished without further incident.
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This story will be updated
