MADRID (AP) \u2014 Rayo Vallecano rallied late to draw 3-3 with Real Sociedad on Sunday in a Spanish league match marked by a sudden turn of events after VAR erased a Rayo goal and awarded a penalty kick to Sociedad instead.<\/p>\n
Rayo thought it had equalized 2-2 through Pedro D\u00edaz in the 69th minute at Vallecas Stadium, but the goal was called back after the referee went to video review and awarded a penalty kick to Sociedad earlier in the buildup.<\/p>\n
Mikel Oyarzabal converted the 76th-minute penalty to make it 3-1 to the visitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you decide not to call a penalty, the VAR calls you and your decision is delayed minute by minute, you are essentially telling the public that you don\u2019t think it\u2019s a penalty because you are not convinced,\u201d Rayo coach I\u00f1igo P\u00e9rez said. He added that “if you have doubts over 10 minutes, it\u2019s because it isn\u2019t (a penalty). I think he still doesn\u2019t know if it was a penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rayo found a way to even the match with goals from Florian Lejeune in the 84th and Alem\u00e3o in the ninth minute of stoppage time.<\/p>\n
Sociedad, winless in three league games, stayed in eighth place while Rayo moved to 11th.<\/p>\n
Relegation fight<\/p>\n
In the fight against relegation, Sevilla’s struggles continued as it conceded two late goals in a 2-1 loss at Osasuna.<\/p>\n
Neal Maupay put the visitors ahead in the 69th but ninth-placed Osasuna rallied with goals from Ra\u00fal Garc\u00eda in the 80th and Alejandro Catena deep into stoppage time.<\/p>\n
It was the fifth loss in six matches for Sevilla.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had the chance of winning at a tough place,\u201d Sevilla coach Luis Garc\u00eda Plaza said. \u201cThe team played well but again it was for nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coach loudly complained about the nine minutes of stoppage time.<\/p>\n
Osasuna had won only one of its last seven matches.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Elche moved further away from the drop zone with a 2-1 win at last-placed Oviedo.<\/p>\n
It was the fourth win in five matches for Elche, which reached 38 points, four more than 18th-placed Sevilla. Sevilla was one point behind Mallorca, the first team outside the drop zone.<\/p>\n
Oviedo stayed seven points from safety.<\/p>\n
Third-place Villarreal had a 2-1 win over Celta Vigo, giving American defender Alex Freeman, son of former Super Bowl winner Antonio Freeman, a victory in his first La Liga start.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID (AP) \u2014 Rayo Vallecano rallied late to draw 3-3 with Real Sociedad on Sunday in a Spanish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[109,1743,396,7577,7576],"class_list":["post-12486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-seville","tag-seville","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-var-rayo-sociedad-la-liga-sevilla-villarreal","tag-wire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}