Real Madrid snatched a precious victory at Espanyol’s stadium, settling the first round of the Spanish league in the dying moments on Saturday to launch Jos\u00e9 Mourinho’s reign in thrilling fashion.<\/p>\n
The match looked destined for a 1-1 draw. Then substitute Carlos Esp\u00ed popped up at the decisive moment, firing the Royal club to victory at 89 minutes and 54 seconds.<\/p>\n
Jude Bellingham had put Real Madrid ahead first, needing just 9 minutes to leave his mark on the club’s opening game of Mourinho’s second spell. The Englishman carried on the remarkable form he has shown since the World Cup.<\/p>\n
Espanyol refused to fold. \u00c1lex Calatrava equalised in the 30th minute, punishing confusion in the Real Madrid defence to drag the hosts back into the contest and complicate the visitors’ task.<\/p>\n
With the final whistle looming, Esp\u00ed settled it with that late strike, handing Real Madrid three precious points to open their campaign. The win carries historic weight: it became only the second in Real Madrid’s history to arrive in the opening round of La Liga courtesy of a goal in the final minute or beyond of stoppage time, according to Mister Chip.<\/p>\n
The first came on 21 August 1999, when Real Madrid beat Real Mallorca on the opening day of La Liga through a Ra\u00fal Gonz\u00e1lez goal in the 90+3 minute.<\/p>\n
Read also: Faster than Mourinho’s first start: 9 minutes are enough for Bellingham to launch Real Madrid’s new eraRead also: Video: Regragui’s appearance alongside the Emir of Qatar raises questions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Real Madrid snatched a precious victory at Espanyol’s stadium, settling the first round of the Spanish league in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[25652,93,8173,85,82,83],"class_list":["post-74389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-madrid","tag-c-espi","tag-espanyol","tag-espanyol-vs-real-madrid","tag-laliga","tag-madrid","tag-real-madrid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74389","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=74389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}