La Liga window: Real have a replacement for Casemiro, Lewandowski’s first goal and Atlético’s shortfall

La Liga has almost completed the second round. Real Madrid won again, Barcelona scored their first win, Atlético fell to Villarreal at home. We’ll look at everything in our regular La Liga round-up.

Real Madrid

The defending champions were hit with some tough news this week. The leader, one of the captains and a member of the legendary CKM trio, Casemiro, left. However, Real Madrid prepared for his departure in advance by bringing one of the most sought-after youngsters in Europe, Aurélien Tchouaméni, from Monaco for €80 million.

The Frenchman started right away at Celta Vigo and made his Brazilian predecessor quickly forget about him. He put in a great performance, was almost unbeatable defensively and became the man of the match according to many.

Real opened the scoring thanks to Benzema converting a penalty, but the same coin was returned by the home side’s Iago Aspas, both penalty kicks were whistled for handball. However, Luka Modric scored beautifully before half-time.

In the second half, Vinícius Junior made an extra run to increase the score to 3-1. Valverde added a beautiful shot to make it 4:1. The score could have been even higher, but Hazard converted the penalty.

Barcelona

After the fiasco in the first round (0: 0 with Rayo), Barcelona finally got their nerve back. The Catalans travelled to Real Sociedad and Robert Lewandowski made his debut in the first minute. However, in the sixth minute Alexander Isak equalised after a beautiful lob.

The tie lasted until the 64th minute when Ansu Fati came on. He immediately set up Dembélé’s goal in the 66th minute, and two minutes later he crossed for Lewandowski’s second goal to make it 3-1.

In the 79th minute, Fati scored himself to make it 4-1. The talented youngster thus helped the Blaugranas to an important win, next week they will challenge Valladolid at home.

Atlético Madrid

After a 3:0 opening win against Getafe, Atlético faced a tough test at home. Champions League semi-finalist Villarreal. And the Colchoneros fell short. The game was tied for a long time until 19-year-old Yeremy Pino scored in the 73rd minute after a cross on the right wing.

Atlético then tried to equalize, but the Yellow Submarine more or less easily repelled the home team’s attacks. In the 94th minute, moreover, new signing Nahuel Molino elbowed Baena in the back out of frustration for absolutely no reason and saw a red card.

Gerard Moreno took advantage of the free space to increase the score to 2-0 in the 97th minute. Villarreal now have 6 points after two rounds and a score of 5::0, which puts them at the top of the table. Real Madrid have the same number of points but a worse record (6: 2).

Sevilla

Another shocking result came on Friday night. Sevilla welcomed Real Valladolid at home, looking to atone for their opening defeat to Osasuna. However, it failed to do so, virtually failing to get a shot on target at all, which it did only twice in the entire match.

Moreover, Anuar scored in the 80th minute and the whole Ramón Sanchéz Pizjuán went nervously silent. In the 86th minute, at least, stopper Rekik equalized to force a draw, but one point out of a possible six is one hell of a lot for Sevilla. Lopetegui had imagined a very different start to the season.

All results:

Espanyol – Vallecano 0::2
Sevilla – Valladolid 1::1
Osasuna – Cadiz 2::0
Mallorca – Betis 1::2
Celta Vigo – Real Madrid 1::4
Athletic Club – Valencia 1::0
Atlético Madrid – Villarreal 0::2
Real Sociedad – Barcelona 1::4

Monday::

20::00 Elche – Almería
22::00 Girona – Getafe

Source:: La Liga