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MOTD- Athletic Bilbao 1-1 Real Madrid

By on February 2, 2014

Cristiano Ronaldo is undoubtedly one of the top two players in the world, has some of the best control of the ball in the world, has one of the best strikes of all time, and is one of the beast headers of the ball, but there is also no doubt that the Portuguese forward let his one major weakness show through as Real Madrid visited the new home of Athletic Bilbao, the San Mames stadium, in the Spanish La Liga.  As you may well know, that would be his temper.  Madrid had a good chance of retaking the lead after Bilbao scored an equalizer in the seventy-third minute, but Ronaldo’s reaction to not being awarded a penalty ended in a small scuffle with Carlos Gurpegui and Ander Iturraspe, in for which the Ronaldo received straight red for, deeply hurting his side’s chances of a winner.

However, all of the action came after a rather dull first half.  The home side dominated in the opening minutes, and although Ronaldo came inches away from putting Madrid in front barely a minute in with a screaming long range snapshot, Athetic also really should have taken the lead after eighteen minutes when Aritz Aduriz was slipped in on goal down the middle before poking a shot inches wide of the woodwork.  However, the pace of the match quickly began to slow down as the end of the second half neared, with zero shots recorded in the final fifteen minutes of the half.

Yet Madrid came out in the second half looking for blood, quickly proven when Luka Modric saw his lashed effort from Karim Benzema’s knockdown just pushed around the post by Gorka Iraizoz.  Iraizoz was once again tested when Benzema drilled a fierce effort goal-wards from the left side of the box in the fifty-fourth minute, but failed to stop Jese from making the breakthrough for Madrid eleven minutes later.  Benzema slid a neat pass through down the left channel to the run of Ronaldo, who cut the ball in towards the penalty spot where Jese slid in to tap the ball past Iraizoz into the far corner of the net.

Madrid looked like they would go on to put the game to bed, but Bilbao surprisingly found an equalizer in the seventy-fifth minute in spectacular fashion when Madrid cleared Ibai Gomez’s lofted free-kick.  Yet the headed clearance fell for Gomez on the edge of the box for the forward to smash a stunning volley in off the post to make it 1-1.  Madrid still had a good chance of finding the winner, but Ronaldo erased most hopes only two minutes after Gomez’s goal when he clawed at Gurpegui and Iturraspe sent a small headbutt in the direction of Iturraspe following referee Miguel Angel Ayza‘s decision not to award Real a penalty for handball.  Ayza had already been calling soft free-kicks, so when he produced red for Ronaldo it wasn’t that much of a surprise.  The sending off did give Bilbao an increased insentive to go forward though, with Diego Lopez just keeping it level with a fantastic save to tip another Gomez volley from the edge of the area over the bar five minutes from time.  Yet the Madrid defense kept strong to scrape out the point, even though they would have much preferred all three points which would have taken them into first place in La Liga above both Barcelona and Atletico Madrid. Just goes to show how much one red card can affect the table.
Man of the Match: Ibai Gomez

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.