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There doesn’t appear to be anything that can hold back this Real Madrid team. Despite being without Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo, Los Blancos went on the road and picked up another 3 points defeating Barcelona based club Espanyol Sunday. The win not only marked their four consecutive win in La Liga this season, but their 16th straight league win spanning from last season.
No Ronaldo? No Bale? No problem! It took a full team effort from Los Blancos Sunday at Espanyol and despite not having two of their biggest stars, Los Merengues had no trouble winning 2-0 with goals from James Rodriguez and Karim Benzema, the first of the season for both players.
It was a rocky start for Madrid as they looked unsettled on defense and saw midfielder Casemiro pick up a knock 14 minutes in. Both Sergio Ramos and Pepe struggled with a couple of the Espanyol chances within the first half hour of the contest and Ramos nearly received a yellow for an errant challenge on an Espanyol attacker.
When Casemiro was forced to come off after just 18 minutes, manager Zinedine Zidane looked to reliable midfielder Toni Kroos to come in and help out an already unsettled squad. That is exactly what he did.
(Photo by Joan Cros Garcia/Corbis via Getty Images)
The more touches Kroos got as the game went along, the more confident the players around him looked and the better the team played as a whole. It was Kroos who provided the pass to James Rodriguez that led to the first goal just seconds before halftime. James showed why he was so highly sought out nut megging one Espanyol defender, then dribbling around another, before letting a low dipping ball fly from just outside the box. Fortunately for Real, the shot was placed perfectly in the bottom right corner of the net out of reach from goalkeeper Diego Lopez, the former Real Madrid man.
The second half was much more of a one sided game as Real settled in and played the possession game up by one on the road.
Both Marco Asensio and Lucas Vasquez played a great second half creating chances up the wings and making intelligent, veteran like decisions while filling in for the injured Ronaldo and Bale respectively.
According to Whoscored.com, Vasquez finished with a match rating of 7.5 and assisted on the second goal from Karim Benzema, providing a beautiful low cross that Benzema tucked home with ease.
Asensio on the other hand was more a contributor off the ball finishing with a 6.9 rating after playing the full 90 minutes.
(Photo by Antonio Villalba/Real Madrid via Getty Images)
Benzema’s second half brace should give Zidane a lot of confidence in his strikers as Alvaro Morata and now Benzema have both been able to find the back of the net in big games. If Bale is to miss extended time, don’t be too surprised to see Zidane maybe experiment and move Morata out wide and use Benzema and Morata at the same time, creating an aggressive front line.
The highlights from the game are below:
Real Madrid will be back in action Wednesday as they host Villarreal.
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