BARCELONA, Dec 31 — Barcelona’s direct more than Genuine Madrid atop the LaLiga standings evaporated on Saturday right after they had been held to a 1-1 dwelling attract by area rivals Espanyol in a negative-tempered clash in which both sides have been decreased to 10 gentlemen.
Madrid experienced taken top location on Friday with a 2- get at Serious Valladolid, putting tension on Barcelona to answer towards an Espanyol facet battling to avoid relegation.
Barcelona started strongly, with defender Marcos Alonso glancing a header into the web to give the hosts the direct with 7 minutes on the clock.
Immediately after a initial 50 percent in which Barcelona spurned quite a few possibilities, Alonso turned from hero to zero as he gave absent a penalty following a clumsy foul on Joselu, who rolled his place kick straight down the center to make it 1-1 in the 73rd moment.
Tempers flared following the equaliser, with Barcelona’s Jordi Alba being despatched off just after acquiring back-to-back again yellow cards for vociferous protests towards the referee, right before Espanyol’s Vinicius Souza was shown a 2nd yellow card for a foul on Robert Lewandowski minutes later.
Barcelona stay on best of the standings thanks to their top-quality objective big difference, despite becoming amount with rivals Madrid on 38 factors from 15 matches, although Espanyol shift up to 16th. — Reuters