Real Madrid returned to the top of the La Liga table with a comeback 2-1 victory at home to Mallorca on Sunday.
Two brilliantly taken goals from Federico Valverde and Vinicius Junior ensured Real maintained their 100% start to the league season, despite falling behind in the first half.
Carlo Ancelotti made a handful of changes to his side following their midweek Champions League win and at times looked somewhat clunky for it, but ultimately showed their talent to see off Mallorca, who caused the defending La Liga champions problems on the counter attack.
The visitors had a golden opportunity to take the lead from a long ball inside the first minute of play, with Vedat Muriqi getting in behind and forcing a low save out of Thibaut Courtois.
Real dominated possession after the early scare, with Mallorca happy to sit in deep and absorb the pressure as best they could. The hosts couldn’t break through the block, though, resorting to wayward shots from distance which simply didn’t trouble Predrag Rajkovic in the Mallorca goal enough.
When Los Blancos upped the tempo of their passing and pushed on their full backs, they began to find space and a fine layoff from Valverde into Rodrygo’s path almost resulted in the opener after 27 minutes, but the Brazilian couldn’t steer it into the back of the net.
For all their possession and dominance, though, Real fell behind after 35 minutes. Valverde gave away a foul deep into their own half, allowing Lee Kang-in to whip in a free-kick to the back post which was headed in by Muriqi for 1-0.
Ancelotti’s rotated side perked up again after going behind, but clearly struggled in the heat. That was until Valverde made amends for his error on the cusp of half-time with a fabulous equaliser, picking the ball up in his own half, dribbling towards goal and rifling in an incredible strike.
Proceedings were much the same after the break, with Los Blancos dominating possession and Mallorca dropping deeper and deeper in order to hang on for as long as they possibly could.
Changes were made around the hour mark to try and swing the game one way or the other. A free-kick on the edge of the box for Real saw the ball laid short for Lucas Vazquez after 61 minutes, but his curled effort whistled just wide of the post.
After another lengthy spell of possession, Real were almost undone against the run of play after 64 minutes when a neat pattern of play saw Mallorca slice open the hosts, but Antonio Sanchez poked a square ball wide from point-blank…
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