News desk: Atletico Madrid cut the gap on second place Real Madrid to just two points with a 2-1 win over 10-man Rayo Vallecano on Sunday in La Liga.<\/p>\n
Valencia fell to a damaging 2-1 defeat at Almeria which leaves them in the relegation zone, while nine-man Real Betis lost 2-0 at home against Cadiz, denting their bid for Champions League football.<\/p>\n
Defenders Nahuel Molina and Mario Hermoso struck first-half goals two minutes apart to put Atletico into a dominant position at Vallecas.<\/p>\n
Rayo had defender Florian Lejuene sent off in the second half for a professional foul on Alvaro Morata, allowing Atletico to stroll, but Fran Garcia’s powerful drive gave the hosts some hope in the final stages.<\/p>\n
Atletico held on to keep up the pressure on their rivals, champions Real Madrid, who lost 3-2 at home against Villarreal on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Diego Simeone’s side took the lead after a slick break, with Yannick Carrasco and Antoine Griezmann combining well, before the latter played a fine pass to Alvaro Morata.<\/p>\n
The striker nudged the ball on to Molina, racing up on the right, who swept the ball home to net his first goal for the club.<\/p>\n
Molina dedicated his strike to team-mate Angel Correa, absent from the squad after his mother died this week, raising the Argentine’s number 10 shirt into the air.<\/p>\n
Atletico soon grabbed their second with Hermoso heading home from Carrasco’s corner for his fourth goal of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
News desk: Atletico Madrid cut the gap on second place Real Madrid to just two points with a 2-1 win over 10-man Rayo Vallecano on Sunday in La Liga. Valencia fell to a damaging 2-1 defeat at Almeria which leaves them in the relegation zone, while nine-man Real Betis lost 2-0 at home against Cadiz, denting their bid for Champions League football. Defenders Nahuel Molina and Mario Hermoso struck first-half goals two minutes apart to put Atletico into a dominant position at Vallecas. Rayo had defender Florian Lejuene sent off<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30826"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30829,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30826\/revisions\/30829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}