Girona imposes a draw against Real Madrid in its stronghold
Real Madrid stumbled for the second match in a row, this time in the twelfth stage of the Spanish Football League, with a 1-1 draw at home with its Catalan guest Girona on Sunday, but it regained the lead from the latter's neighbor, its arch-rival Barcelona, by a point after it was three points.
With French striker Karim Benzema still missing due to injury, Real seemed unable to find his way to the net during the first half, which witnessed one real chance for the Royal Club in the 23rd minute, but the post intervened to prevent Brazilian Rodrigo from opening the scoring after a distinguished individual effort from the brilliant Uruguayan Federico Valverde.
Girona, who won only two wins at the start of his return to the top flight, responded with a similar opportunity, but the crossbar intervened to stand in the way of Venezuelan Yanchel Herrera's shot (38).
And the situation remained the same until the 70th minute, when the Brazilian Vinicius Junior succeeded in giving Real the lead after a series of passes inside the area, through which the ball reached Valverde, who played it cross, and Vinicius pounced on it and put it in the net, scoring his sixth goal in the league this season and ninth in all competitions.
But substitute Marco Asensio gave Girona a equalizer when he touched the ball with his hand in the forbidden area, so the referee awarded a penalty kick that was confirmed by "VAR" and Uruguayan Christian Stuani successfully scored it (80).
Real completed the meeting with ten players in the last seconds after German Toni Kroos was sent off with a second warning, to settle in the end with his second draw of the season, raising his score to 32 points in the lead, one point ahead of his rival Barcelona, who won Saturday against Valencia 1-0, while Girona's tally is 10 points. Two wins and four draws.
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