Outside the lines, 21.1/photo: Walla studio! Video editing: Ziv Steiner
Real Madrid tonight (Sunday) had two completely different halves in the game against Almeria.
The first was one of their worst this season, and in fact the first since the 2003/04 season in which they fell behind twice at home and without a single opportunity to frame going into the break.
They will hope to continue the second half with a major turnaround that ended in a dramatic 2:3 thanks to Dani Carvajal's winning goal, deep in extra time (90+9) with a temporary return to the top that was recaptured following Girona's victory over Sevilla.
The right defender who wore the captain's armband in the final minutes was moved by the emotional goal celebration and said: "I came to score this goal with the last drop of energy left in me. Glad I was able to do it."
1 - @BellinghamJude ???????
has scored @realmadriden's first penalty goal this season in @LaLiga after three attempts, the most tally they have taken to score the first penalty in a campaign in the competition in the XXI century.
Premiere.
pic.twitter.com/EmsumzXNWZ
— OptaJose (@OptaJose) January 21, 2024
Much to the chagrin of Almeria, which of course remained without a win since the beginning of the season and at the bottom of the table, it managed to lose the double advantage, but was backed by many media bodies in Spain when it claimed at the end about "deprivation and bias of judgment in favor of Real".
Apart from Jude Bellingham's penalty, which increased his tally to 14 goals in the league, the Blancos' second goal was scored from Vinicius' touch, when even after a VAR check, a penalty kick was awarded from 11 meters, although it seemed that the Brazilian scored with his hand and not his shoulder.
"Someone decided we weren't going to win today," Almeria player Mark Povil said at the end of the game.
"That's all that happened. We were robbed. What happened crossed any border."
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Carlo Ancelotti actually supported the referee's decisions that came in favor of his team: "The referee made good decisions. All 3 cases were very clear. It was a strange game, we were very bad in the first half, I made a mistake in choosing the lineup and the players were tired. It was my mistake. The crowd whistled Contempt? That's their right, they did the right thing. We were horrible. The second half was already very good for us, I just want us to forget about the first."
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