Real Madrid 1-1 Girona: Hosts suffer 3-game winless run despite Valverde nets

Former Atlético Madrid attacker Thomas Lemar scored the all-important equaliser as 12th-placed Girona held Real Madrid to a 1-1 draw for the second time this season, further denting the home side’s fading LaLiga title hopes. 

Match Report

Donning a kit inspired by the 1991/92 campaign, Girona made a positive start to the opening game of LaLiga’s retro weekend, as Azzedine Ounahi forced Andriy Lunin into a superb near-post stop inside the opening 15 minutes. Real Madrid, who decided against taking part in the celebration of all things nostalgia, attempted to stamp their authority on the contest with a couple of promising opportunities before the 30-minute mark. Jude Bellingham poked the ball wide at full-stretch in his first start since January, shortly before Federico Valverde saw his whipped shot swatted away by the alert Paulo Gazzaniga. 

However, the Girona goalkeeper failed to cover himself in glory when Valverde wound up one of his long-range strikes in the opening stages of the second period. Gazzaniga made an unconventional attempt to keep out the Uruguayan’s swerving effort, which powered past the shot-stopper’s feeble defences to the delight of the majority of the 70,885 in attendance. Those fans were soon left frustrated by the failure to close down Lemar for Girona’s well-struck 62nd-minute equaliser. The Frenchman was given the time and space to let fly from the edge of the box, firing a low shot through Eduardo Camavinga’s legs and beyond the helpless Lunin.

Girona continued to carry the greater threat for a period after their leveller, with every attack generating a sea of whistles from a frustrated Bernabéu crowd that knew the consequences of more dropped points. The mood failed to improve when Kylian Mbappé drilled a near-post shot straight at Gazzaniga in an attempt to find a late winner, just moments before he had a penalty appeal turned down. Álvaro Arbeloa’s charges ultimately ran out of time in their bid to snatch all three points, as they followed back-to-back defeats against Mallorca and Bayern Munich with a score draw, knowing that Barcelona now have the chance to move nine points clear in the title race. 

Line-ups

Real Madrid XI: Carvajal, Mbappe, Valverde, Militao, Brahim, Lunin, Fran García, Vinicius, Camavinga, Bellingham, Raúl Asencio

Subs: Alaba, F Mendy, Ceballos, Tchouameni, Manuel Ángel, Güler, Gonzalo García, Dean Huijsen, Fran González, Daniel Yáñez, Jesús Fortea, Thiago Pitarch

Girona XI: Witsel, Gazzaniga, Lemar, Álex Moreno, Viktor Tsygankov, Iván Martín, Azzedine Ounahi, Alejandro Francés, Arnau Martínez, Echeverri, Vitor Reis

Subs: Stuani, D.López, Blanco, Abel Ruiz, Beltran, Gil, Hugo Rincón, Joel Roca, Lass Kourouma, Vladyslav Krapyvtsov