It was a wild Wednesday in across European Football with all of the major players in action including Real Madrid and Barcelona. In England, Chelsea turned it on against Liverpool, in Italy, Dybala finally scored and Pablo Fornals Golazo.
But all eyes were on Spain where BOTH Real Madrid and Barcelona lost. Its the first time they’ve lost in the same round since January 2015.
European Midweek Madness: Real Madrid and Barcelona Both Lose
Leganes 2-1 Barcelona
When Barcelona travelled to the south of Madrid to take on Leganes, they never thought they would leave without the three points. They started perfectly; a lovely run by Messi was followed by a lovely ball infield.
Then, Philippe Coutinho controlled the ball beautifully and smashed it home. They were 1-0 up in just 12 minutes.
Even at halftime, Barcelona looked to be in control. But in the span of two second half minutes, everything changed. First, in the 52’ a lovely cross was flighted to the back post by Jonathan Silva, and Nabil El Zhar met it with a fiery header to equalize.
Then, a minute later Gerard Pique slipped while trying to clear the ball and ended up playing a beautiful cross to Leganes’ Oscar Rodriguez, who scored their second goal.
Barcelona tried and tried from there but were unable to beat Leganes ‘keeper Ivan Cuellar. Cuellar made two outstanding saves on a shot from Coutinho that rebounded to Ivan Rakitic. He then smashed into Cuellar’s left hand.
But despite those efforts and their 78% possession, Barcelona were still outshot by Leganes ten to nine. And this game featured nine of their eleven starters from the start, plus Jordi Alba and Luis Suarez coming on from the bench.
That is a major problem for Barca, struggling to outshoot Leganes with their first team cannot happen. On the back of draw at home against Girona, it looks even worse.
They will need to regroup with a ton of big games coming up over the next few weeks. But even this wasn’t the most shocking game of the day for La Liga’s two behemoths, Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Sevilla 3-0 Real Madrid
When Real Madrid pay visit to the Sanchez Pijuan to take on Sevilla they are always in for an alley fight. But they did not expect to be outclassed as they were on Wednesday night.
After 25 minutes they were already down 2-0 thanks to quick possession by Sevilla. That quick possession opened up Jesus Navas behind Marcelo who first found Andre Silva for the first and then had his shot saved right to Silva again for the second.
Silva is now the top scorer in Spain with six goals in six games.
But it would not end there. In the 38th minute after a corner, the ball was headed back into the mixer by Franco Vazquez and finished home by Wissam Ben Yedder. It was 3-0 after 40 minutes.
Sevilla had put Real Madrid to the sword at the Pijuan. They had ripped up Real Madrid’s left side with Marcelo and Sergio Ramos looking like shadows of themselves.
The second half featured plenty of chances but neither side could capitalize. Sevilla had once again been the thorn in Real Madrid’s side.
What’s worse for Madrid this is their fourth straight loss at the Pijuan in the league and they lost Marcelo to injury. Not a great day for Spain’s two giants, Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Elsewhere in Spain
Atlético Madrid thrashed Huesca at the Wanda Metropolitano 3-0 thanks to three first-half goals of solid quality. From there they cruised to victory.
While Real Madrid and Barcelona were in the process of losing, Valencia took on Celta Vigo at the Mestalla. It did not go as planned for the Bats after they went up 1-0 through Batman himself, Michy Batshuayi.
But it would not last forever as Iago Aspas headed home the equalizer for Celta splitting the points. Valencia is still winless in La Liga, with last season’s fourth-place finisher sitting 15th.
The goal scored by Pablo Fornals against Athletic Bilbao at San Mames is also worth mention. The ball falls to Fornals about 45 yards from goal and he absolutely smashes it.
A giant looping ball almost touches the sky before falling into the corner of the net. The goal opened the scoring for Villareal.
Serie A Roundup
Roma manager Eusebio Di Francesco knew going into this week he needed to make major improvements to keep his job. Roma is off to their worst start since 2010 and faced Frosinone midweek before the Rome Derby against city rivals Lazio.
They got what they needed, a 4-0 win at home against Frosinone including a lovely backheel goal from Javier Pastore. Lazio were 2-1 winners at Udinese setting up perfectly a massive Saturday afternoon Derby.
The other big game on Saturday will be Napoli travelling to Turin to take Juventus. Both teams had tomato can games to build up to the big fight and both got the result they wanted. Napoli crushed Parma 3-0 and Juve beat Bologna 2-0.
Juventus played with a back three for the first time all season, something their roster is uniquely set up to do. With great centre-backs like Chiellini, Bonucci, Benatia, Rugani and Barzagli, the back three will get their best players on the field.
Plus, it will open up their two superstars; Ronaldo and Paulo Dybala. With that more free role against Bologna, Dybala scored his first goal of the season and look set to play a big part on Saturday.
Chelsea
Nothing looked more like Maurizio’s Sarri’s Chelsea than the last twenty-five minutes at Anfield on Wednesday. With Sarri’s move to a bigger club, it was expected his style would translate even better with more resources and the players at Chelsea.
They showed it at Anfield when they came from behind to win 2-1 in the Carabao Cup. That comeback was augmented by an absolute world beater of a goal by Eden Hazard. Marking his inclusion in the FIFA World XI with one of his all-time best goals.
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