While only two Premier League fixtures transpired this weekend, plenty of notable play happened in Italy’s Serie A and Spain’s La Liga.
Atletico Madrid lost their very first home match of the year to Villarreal, 1-0, and a negative result, like this, last occurred when Barcelona downed Diego Simeone’s crew in May 2013.
In the 85th minute, 21-year-old Luciano Vietto gathered the ball from Moi Gomez and managed to dance past star center back Diego Godin near the edge of the penalty area; the youngster then utilized open space to expedite a nice finish into the back of the net.
Atletico’s best chance of the match arose on Mario Mandzukic’s header, which was controversially called a foul in the 58th minute. Even though some may call this outcome surprising, Villarreal stood in great form (four straight league wins) preceding this contest.
To Serie A: First-place Juventus’s point advantage over second-place Roma narrowed when the Wolves blanked Genoa, 1-0, while Juve only mustered a 1-1 draw vs. Sampdoria.
Genoa goalkeeper Mattia Perin was shown an exit in the 29th minute, and with just 10 men, freshly-subbed net minder Eugenio Lamanna didn’t disappoint, stuffing a penalty from Adem Ljajic.
In the 40th minute, Maicon delivered a cross that facilitated Radja Nainggolan’s wonderful volley for the competition’s single goal, and in the remaining 50 minutes, Roma didn’t run into many difficulties, sans a fortunate offside call on Tomas Rincon’s score.
Over to Turin, Patrice Evra buried a well-executed header off Claudio Marchisio’s corner kick to snatch a brisk lead for the Zebras in the 12th minute.
Unable to convert offensive chances for the better result, Manolo Gabbiadini came off the bench and whipped a deep curling attempt to equalize in the 51st minute.
Other Serie A results
Udinese 1-2 Verona
Parma 0-0 Cagliari
Cesena 1-4 Fiorentina
Milan 2-0 Napoli
La Liga Results
Espanyol 2-1 Granada
Sevilla 0-0 Eibar
Real Sociedad 1-1 Atheltic