Carlo Ancelotti, the coach of Real Madrid, said there was “no drama” even though his team failed to build on their Clasico win and lost two points in the race for the La Liga title with a 0-0 draw against Rayo Vallecano on Sunday.
At the Santiago Bernabeu, Real Madrid had a lot of chances to win as they pushed Rayo back, but they couldn’t find the last-second winner that they usually do.
After Saturday’s lucky win over Real Sociedad, Barcelona moved ahead of Madrid by two points. Madrid is now in second place, two points behind Girona, who shocked everyone by coming from behind to beat Osasuna.
“In the table we are doing very well, we’re in the fight, we’re doing very well in the Champions League — there is no drama,” Ancelotti told the media.
“We’re confident, we will do things well, like we always do, like we did today.”
It was unfair for his team to lose because they couldn’t score the goal they wanted.
“We’re hurt by the result, not the performance, clearly it was a game we deserved to win,” said Ancelotti.
“We tried in every way, and it didn’t come off, we tried until the last second.”
Ancelotti put Eduardo Camavinga in the starting lineup instead of Aurelien Tchouameni, the holding player who was hurt, and Luka Modric in place of Toni Kroos.
As soon as the game started, Real Madrid went after their neighbours, and Stole Dimitrievski, the goalie for Rayo Vallecano, had a lot to do.
When Fede Valverde broke through on goal early on, he made a great save.
The league’s top scorer, Jude Bellingham, went down hurt and held his left shoulder. This gave Madrid a scare early on.
The England player got better after a few minutes and was able to stay on.
“Bellingham has a shoulder problem, but he was able to keep going…” Ancelotti said, “I don’t think it will be a big deal.”
After Bellingham did a great job of setting up Fran Garcia, he shot just wide, and Dimitrievski made a great save to stop Joselu after Vinicius Junior cut the ball back to him.
As the game got closer to the end, the Brazilian winger got more involved. He scored in the 66th minute, but Joselu was offside, so the goal was called off.
Getting more angry
Vinicius was given a yellow card for dissent as he and Madrid grew more angry at how hard the guests were defending.
Bellingham had already made a number of crucial late-game saves for Madrid, but he wasn’t able to repeat his heroics from last weekend, when he scored twice against Barcelona.
Rodrygo Goes had the best chance for Madrid in extra time, but Dimitrievski was there to save it with a backheeled shot.
Prior to the game, Ancelotti said that this season, Brazilian wingers Vinicius and Rodrygo would score more goals than Bellingham and Joselu. However, his statement did not start to come true quickly enough.
Antonio Rudiger and Florian Lejeune got into a fight at the end of the game and were both given a ticket. The Madrid back will now miss their next La Liga game against Valencia because of the fight.
Rayo hasn’t lost in eight league games; their most recent loss was at the beginning of September. They are tied with Madrid and Barcelona for sixth place with six clean sheets.
Forward Raul de Tomas for Rayo told DAZN, “It was a really complete game from the team. We put in a huge effort; we know what a tough place this is to come.”
Somewhere else Athletic Bilbao moved up to fifth place with a thrilling 3-2 win over weak Villarreal on Sunday.
Nico and Inaki Williams scored goals for Ernesto Valverde’s team in the first half, after Inigo Ruiz de Galarreta opened the scoring for the hosts.
But Gerard Moreno scored a goal to tie the game in the 86th minute, and Alexander Sorloth scored right away to make the end very exciting.
The Villarreal team led by Pacheta has only won one of their last seven league games. They are currently 13th in the table, five points above the relegation zone.
Moreno told Movistar, “The first half was so bad, we can’t play like that.”
Atheltic is four points behind Atletico Madrid, who lost at Las Palmas on Friday.