La Liga week 3: Atletico win Derby at the Bernabeu

La Liga resumed this week after the international break. It saw Atletico beat their city rivals Real Madrid, Barcelona maintain their 100% record and Deportivo record their first victory since gaining promotion writes Jamie Currie.

The biggest game of the weekend was undoubtedly the Madrid derby at the Santiago Bernabeu. Where it was the away side and reigning champions Atletico who walked away with a 2-1 victory and the three points.

It only took Los Rojiblancos 10 minutes to go in front from a typical Atleti corner. Koke whipped in the corner from the left-hand side to the front post; Tiago beat everyone to the ball and headed it beyond a helpless Iker Casillas from close range. Conceding the goal motivated the home side for the rest of the first half. Moya denied Ronaldo’s free-kick with a magnificent one-handed save. He wasn’t going to be denied in the 25th minute he ran at Siqueira, the left-back tripped him inside the area and a penalty was awarded. The Madrid no7 stepped up and sent Moya the wrong way to equalise. Moya made a magnificent save to keep the scores level, he had to sprawl to his left to deny Benzema’s goal-bound header just before half-time.

Madrid kept up the pressure at the beginning of the second half. Rodriguez and Bale went close with efforts but could not put Los Blancos in front. It wasn’t until Simeone introduced Turan and Griezmann that Atletico began to come into the game again. They came close to taking the lead through the Turk on the 76th minute, Griezmann fed him the ball on the left-hand side, and he cut inside and fired his shot just wide. Arda came close again when he almost got on the end of Juanfran’s cross; it was headed behind for a corner. The winning goal came just after that. Juanfran started the move with a thrown-in, he threw to Griezmann, and the Frenchman sent Juanfran in behind Coentrao, before he crossed for Raul Garcia, the midfielder dummied the cross; behind him was Arda Turan to make it third time luck as he swept the ball low into Casillas’ bottom left-hand corner.

At the final whistle there were no dramatic Atleti celebrations, they now believe they are capable and should be winning at places like the Bernabeu regularly.

Elsewhere, Barcelona and Athletic played out a magnificent match at the Camp Nou, which led to the home side making it three wins from three after two goals from second-half substitute Neymar.

Valencia continued their impressive start under Nuno Santo beating Espanyol 3-1 at the Mestalla. Goals from Pablo Piatti Dani Parejo, and Paco Alcacer had the home side three in front before Sergio Garcia scored a late consolation via the penalty spot.

Deportivo recorded their first victory of the season on Monday night. It came against Eibar at Ipurua. Juan Dominguez scored the only goal of the game to give Depor all the points in the 1-0 victory.