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Zidane furious as Real Madrid lose to struggling Rayo

It was Madrid's first defeat since 1997 by Rayo, their far less glamorous neighbours who began the game bottom of La Liga.

Gareth Bale

Bengaluru, April 29: Real Madrid's coach Zinedine Zidane was furious with his players for "doing nothing" during a limp 0-1 defeat at lowly Rayo Vallecano which saw the deposed European champions suffer their 10th La Liga defeat of the season.

Beneath Real, La Liga's last UEFA Champions League spot remains up for grabs after Valencia, Sevilla and Getafe all endured surprise defeats.

Valencia lost 0-1 at home to Eibar while Sevilla were beaten by the same scoreline away to struggling Girona, whose victory could prove crucial in their fight against relegation.

Both slips gave Getafe the opportunity to pull clear in the three-way race for fourth but they stumbled too, edged out 2-1 away to Real Sociedad.

Getafe stay ahead of Sevilla only on head-to-head, with Valencia three points behind and perhaps looking to the Europa League as their best hope of UEFA Champions League football next season.

Results | Points Table | Fixtures

Madrid's response to Barcelona winning the title night was to slip to a defeat at Vallecas and fall 18 points behind La Liga's newly-crowned champions.

Adri Embarba scored the only goal by converting a penalty midway through the first half and Madrid, aside from an effort by Mariano that was correctly ruled out for offside, rarely looked like equalising.

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"We did nothing on any level, from the first minute until the last," a furious Zidane told reporters in the post-match press conference.

"Sometimes you aren't able to score, but we didn't even create chances, we did nothing well. We've to all be angry with our performance. I'm angry because we gave an awful image of ourselves."

It was Madrid's first defeat since 1997 by Rayo, their far less glamorous neighbours who began the game bottom of La Liga, and the first time in a decade that Real have lost 10 games in a league season.

Zidane handed Gareth Bale another chance but he failed to impress, while Thibaut Courtois made his first start under the Frenchman, in ahead of Keylor Navas.

Rayo won their penalty in the 23rd minue as referee Pablo Gonzalez took advice from VAR before judging Jesus Vallejo to have hauled down Javi Guerra in the box. Embarba made no mistake.

Story first published: Monday, April 29, 2019, 11:29 [IST]
Other articles published on Apr 29, 2019