Gareth Bale scored twice to ensure Real Madrid beat Leganes 3-0 to stay top of La Liga.
Cristiano
Ronaldo will renew his contract this week but for the moment Bale is
the team’s most important player and for the second game running he put
his side ahead.
It
wasn’t quite the spectacular volley inside the first minute that he
managed against Legia Warsaw in midweek but this time at least Madrid
did not throw the game away. Bale scored a second and Morata got the
third in what was a comfortable win.
Bale was in
Zinedine Zidane’s bad books before his good ones. Leganes forward
Gabriel Pires went down injured and with Zidane screaming for his
players to not kick the ball out, Bale put the ball out of play so the
visiting player could receive treatment.
Zidane reacted furiously and with Gabriel soon back on his feet Bale had lost the advantage for his team.
All
that was forgotten on 38 minutes, however, when he broke the deadlock
with a diagonal run in behind the Leganes defence that Isco spotted.
The
Spain midfielder played the ball through and when Bale’s first touch
came back off the diving Jon Serantes in the visitors' goal Bale
controlled the rebound and steered the ball into an empty net.
Bale
doubled the advantage with his second goal and this time it was his
striker’s instinct that put him in the right place at the right time.
Varane
headed a long free-kick forward down and when the ball hit a Leganes
defender Bale got to it first to nudge it past Serantes making it 2-0
with the last kick of the first half.
Leganes
could feel hard done by going in at half time with the game as good as
over. This was their first ever league appearance at the Bernabeu
against Real Madrid. Only eight years ago they were close to going out
of business and there 45million euros budget is still barely be enough
to pay Ronaldo’s wages for a season.
But
they had played well enough in the first half with Alexander
Szymanowski winding Keylor Navas up sufficiently that the Madrid keeper
grabbed him by the collars of his green Leganes shirt. The visitors had
done exactly what Zidane had wanted Bale to do and not kick the ball out
with Bale down injured. Navas came face to face again with Szymanowski
in the second half when he was sent racing clear on a one-on-one with
the Madrid keeper who tipped his shot over the bar.
Bale
was having plenty of opportunities to complete his hat-trick and he
upset Ronaldo when he had one shot saved by Serantes instead of trying
to play what would have been a difficult pass to the Portuguese.
Ronaldo
is due to sign his new contract this week keeping him at the club until
2021 and he was desperate to go into its presentation – if Madrid can
schedule one before he joins up with Portugal on Tuesday afternoon –
with a goal against the Madrid minnows.
He might
have been played in by Morata on 77 minutes, but once the Madrid forward
had the goal in his sights, having been put through by Toni Kroos, he
was always going to shoot and he finished well for his eighth goal of
the season in all competitions.
Madrid
were now purring more than at any time of the game. That owed a lot to
the fact that Luka Modric was back on the pitch. Real have missed the
Croatia international during his spell out injured and the roar for his
reappearance was louder than for the last goal.
Spain international forward Alvaro Morata celebrates after adding a late third for the home side against La Liga's new boys
Scorer
of that goal, Morata, now has one more than Bale in all competitions.
But for the moment the Welshman remains the driving force behind Real
Madrid’s start to the season. Once again his goal had broken the
deadlock and led to the three points that keep Real Madrid at the top of
the league.
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