Kylian Mbappe scored twice and set up another as Real Madrid beat Athletic Bilbao 3-0 to cut Barcelona’s La Liga lead back down to one point on Wednesday.
Xabi Alonso’s side curtailed a run of three consecutive league draws away from home with one of their best displays of the season at Athletic’s San Mames.
Mbappe opened the scoring early on as Trent Alexander-Arnold provided his first La Liga assist, with Eduardo Camavinga nodding in the second before the break.
French superstar Mbappe slammed home another in the second half for his 16th league goal of the season to seal Madrid’s victory.
“I think the team played a complete game today, concentrating for the whole 90 minutes… it was probably the best match we’ve had, at a difficult place to go, at a big moment, and we took it on calmly and now we must continue,” Alonso told reporters.
“After (last weekend’s) draw at Girona we knew it was a big moment, and after getting it out of our system we’ll start thinking about Sunday’s match against Celta (Vigo).
“The calendar is very demanding and you can’t think for too long about things, in the good moments and the bad ones.”
One negative for Los Blancos were apparent injuries for Alexander-Arnold and Camavinga in the second half, with both players replaced.
Mbappe missed a penalty in the same fixture last winter while still finding his feet at Madrid, later saying that was his “rock bottom”, but on his return Athletic found themselves up against arguably the best player in the world.
“Kylian’s in great form, he scored two great goals today, with the movement he had, the connection with Vini (Vinicius Junior) was very good, and the team came out to play from the first minute, to win the game,” added Alonso.
Mbappe almost sent Real Madrid ahead in the fourth minute but Unai Simon made a smart save at his near post, and then parried a Vinicius effort.
Madrid came out of the blocks strongly against eighth-place Athletic and took the lead in the seventh minute, through a brilliant Mbappe goal.
Alexander-Arnold picked out the forward with a fine long pass and Mbappe drifted menacingly towards the box and produced a perfect finish to beat Simon.
Gorka Guruzeta fired over and forced Thibaut Courtois into a good save at the other end, on one of Athletic’s rare forays forward.
Their best chance came when Nico Williams and Alex Berenguer combined but Courtois produced a superb stop to deny the latter.
Mbappe-Vini connection
It woke Madrid back up and they took control once again, threatening twice through Vinicius, who was connecting efficiently with Mbappe.
The Brazilian winger hit the outside of the post with a low effort from a tight angle, with Simon out of his goal attempting to block him off.
The goalkeeper made an excellent save to thwart Vinicius one-on-one a few minutes later after Eder Militao sent him through on goal.
Madrid grabbed their second before the interval at the end of a fine team move, with Mbappe nodding Alexander-Arnold’s cross back across goal for Camavinga to head home from point-blank range.
Courtois tipped over Mikel Jauregizar’s fierce effort from range early in the second half to stop Athletic earning a foothold in the game.
The first of two sour notes came for Madrid when Alexander-Arnold pulled up with an apparent muscular injury and had to be replaced by Raul Asencio.
Mbappe put the game beyond doubt with another long-range effort which flew in at the near post for his 25th goal across all competitions. Simon might have done more to keep it out, perhaps undoing some of his earlier good work.
Camavinga was taken off hurt later on in another potential injury blow for former Real Sociedad player Alonso, on an otherwise dream outing in the Basque Country against his former rivals.
The coach even got a warm embrace from Vinicius when he substituted the Brazilian, despite the player seeming to be at loggerheads with him over the past few weeks.
“They were stronger than us,” admitted Athletic defender Inigo Lekue.
“We tried to play our game and couldn’t, no matter what we did.”
AFP
