Atletico Madrid defender Diego Godin (left) vies with Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo during their Spanish league football match.
DPA/Madrid
Real Madrid missed a good chance to go top of the Spanish Liga, being held 1-1 at defiant neighbours Atletico on a late equaliser from supersub Luciano Vietto.
The draw in Madrid left Villarreal top with 16 points, despite the Yellows having lost earlier 1-0 at lowly Levante.
Real, Celta Vigo and Barcelona are in joint second place, just one point behind Villarreal. Then come Atletico on 13 and Deportivo on 12.
Remarkably, none of the top six teams managed to win this weekend. Celta were held 0-0 by Getafe on Friday, Barca crashed 2-1 on Saturday at Sevilla, and Deportivo were held 1-1 at Granada.
In the Madrid derby, Karim Benzema gave Real the lead after nine minutes by powerfully heading in a precise centre from Dani Carvajal, who limped off injured shortly after.
Benzema is now league top scorer with six goals.
In the 23rd minute, Real keeper Keylor Navas saved a penalty from Antoine Griezmann, after Sergio Ramos pulled down Atletico’s Tiago.
Real missed good chances to kill off the match, with Cristiano Ronaldo - just one goal away from becoming the club’s all-time top scorer - looking anxious.
“We should really have finished the match off in the first half with at least one more goal,” Real coach Rafa Benitez said.
“It was obvious that they were really going to come at us in the second half, and that was exactly what happened. But we should have sealed the win by then.”
Vietto levelled for Atletico seven minutes from time, after Griezmann had touched on a centre from the left from Jackson Martinez.
“That was a very important goal for me to score,” Vietto said.
“It would have been really unfair had we lost tonight. ... We were far superior to them in the second half and could even have won it in the end.”
Earlier Sunday, leaders Villarreal suffered their first defeat, 1-0 at lowly Levante on a late goal from Brazilian striker Deyverson.
Surprisingly, Villarreal coach Marcelino Garcia chose not to field captain Bruno Soriano and in-form striker Leo Baptistao.
The Yellows played for almost an hour with 10 men due to the rather harsh sending-off of defender Bojan Jokic in the 35th minute for an ugly foul on Levante’s Ivan Lopez.
Villarreal’s hero was goalkeeper Alphonse Areola, who pulled off a string of sharp saves to keep lively Levante at bay. However, there was nothing the Frenchman could do eight minutes from time, when Deyverson turned in a perfect centre from Nabil Ghilas.
Levante off the bottom
Levante’s first win lifted them up to third bottom.
“I think we really deserved this,” coach Lucas Alcaraz said. “We worked really hard all evening and didn’t let them get into any kind of flow at all. We were very strong in defence, also.”
Villarreal boss Marcelino complained about the direct red card for Jokic: “That decision conditioned the entire match. I don’t want to take away any merit from Levante, but it was hard to play with 10 men for most of the game.”
Earlier, Valencia continued their poor start with a 3-1 defeat at lively Athletic Bilbao.
Dani Parejo gave Valencia the lead in the 19th minute with an exquisite free-kick, but from then on Bilbao were in the driving seat. Aymeric Laporte equalised by heading in a badly defended corner in the 33rd minute, and Markel Susaeta made it 2-1 on the hour after being set up by the ageless Aritz Aduriz.
Aduriz sealed Bilbao’s win with a third goal 20 minutes from time with an intelligent low drive after being set up by Raul Garcia.
“We reacted very well to falling a goal behind. The fans really got behind us, and we started to cause problems for the Valencia defence,” Aduriz said.
The win took Bilbao up to 13th and left Valencia ninth, with coach Nuno Espirito under massive pressure to improve results.
“It is up to me to find solutions for these problems,” Espirito said.
“I am not going to give up - that is not my style at all.”
Real Betis moved up to eighth with a 2-0 win at Rayo Vallecano, who are now 15th on goals from veterans Heiko Westermann and Ruben Castro.
“I think Rayo were expecting a different kind of Betis today, less aggressive and offensive. We seemed to surprise them with our approach,” Betis coach Pepe Mel said.
Rayo boss Paco Jemez said: “I have nothing to reproach my players for today - they gave everything. ... What happened was that Betis were a bit sharper than us in both penalty areas.”
