European football: Real Madrid relieve pressure on Xabi Alonso with crucial win at Alavés | European club football

Rodrygo secured Real Madrid a crucial 2-1 victory at Alavés in La Liga, ending a dismal run of form and keeping them within four points of the leaders, Barcelona.

Real, under pressure after two straight losses in all competitions, broke the deadlock through Kylian Mbappé’s stunning first-half strike. However, a resilient Alavés levelled in the 68th minute through Carlos Vicente. The visitors restored their lead eight minutes later, courtesy of a counterattack led by Vinícius Jr, whose assist was converted by Rodrygo.

The victory keeps Real second in the table on 39 points, four adrift of Barcelona, while Alavés are 12th on 18 points.

“It was a tough, very competitive match,” the Real manager, Xabi Alonso, said. “We started well and took the lead, but then we lost control and, as a result, we didn’t finish well. We had chances in the second half, but we conceded from the only mistake Valdepenas made and Carlos Vicente took advantage of that, after a great pass.

“But the team continued to fight hard, battling it out in a difficult stadium against a very intense opponent. That second goal gave us the three points and we’re leaving here very happy.”

Real Sociedad sacked their head coach, Sergio Francisco, on Sunday, two days after the club’s third straight loss in La Liga. La Real lost 2-1 to struggling Girona on Friday in a home match they led after 75 minutes.

Sunday’s match between Levante and Villarreal was postponed because of a warning of torrential rain in the Valencia region.

Inter moved to the top of Serie A with a 2-1 victory at Genoa thanks to first-half goals from Yann Bisseck and Lautaro Martínez. The result put Inter on 33 points, one ahead of their city rivals Milan and two ahead of Napoli, both of whom failed to win earlier in the day. Genoa are 16th with 14 points.

Inter’s match was preceded by unrest outside the stadium as supporters of both teams clashed, with several vehicles set on fire before police restored order. The incident did not delay kick-off.

Inter needed only six minutes to take the lead, as the defender Bisseck fired a low effort into the near bottom corner. Martínez doubled Inter’s advantage in the 38th minute, powering his way into the area before driving an angled finish into the net.

Genoa improved in the second half and pulled one back in the 68th minute when Vitinha rounded Yann Sommer and rolled the ball in.

Play was briefly halted when smoke filled the stadium after a flare was thrown on to the pitch. After play resumed, Inter held on to seal the win.

Napoli suffered a deserved 1-0 defeat at Udinese. Napoli struggled against an aggressive Udinese, who had two goals disallowed.

After a mostly uneventful first half, it was the hosts who tried to show they were the superior team after the break. Keinan Davis thought he had given Udinese the lead minutes into the second half after running in on a rebound but the celebrations were short-lived as VAR showed he was offside.

With the pressure mounting, it seemed a matter of time before the breakthrough arrived. In the 69th minute, Udinese’s Nicolò Zaniolo was played through on goal, surged to the edge of the box and drove a low shot into the net. However, the referee ruled the goal out for a foul in the buildup, which drew furious protests from the home supporters.

Four minutes later Udinese’s Jurgen Ekkelenkamp produced a moment of brilliance to put the home side ahead. Collecting the ball at a tight angle near the edge of the area, he shrugged off a defender and curled a superb finish into the top corner.

Napoli got more involved in the closing stages after being outmatched for much of the second half. Rasmus Højlund came close when he arrived unmarked at the far post to meet a cross, but lost his footing and fell as his effort sailed over the bar.

Deep into stoppage time, Napoli had another chance as Lorenzo Lucca stretched to meet a cross inside the box but his effort struck the base of the post and went wide.

Milan had to settle for a 2-2 draw against Sassuolo at San Siro. The visitors stunned Milan in the 13th minute when Andrea Pinamonti’s clever layoff set up the midfielder Ismaël Koné, who expertly chipped Mike Maignan to open the scoring.

The hosts equalised just before half-time through a well-crafted move. Luka Modric slipped a perfectly weighted pass to Ruben Loftus-Cheek on the right and the Englishman’s cross reached the left-back Davide Bartesaghi, who rifled the ball into the bottom corner to open his account for Milan.

Bartesaghi scored again in the 47th minute to put Milan ahead but their hopes of securing all three points were dashed in the 77th when Armand Laurienté broke free and slipped past Fikayo Tomori before firing into the far corner.

The Milan manager, Massimiliano Allegri, appeared to play down his team’s title ambitions. “Our goal is to finish in the top four,” he told DAZN. “We need to work hard, and obviously we need to try to concede fewer goals. We could have been more alert for the first goal and the second. In the end, we even risked losing it, so let’s take this point.”

Elsewhere, Juventus won 1-0 at 10-man Bologna to leapfrog their opponents into fifth place – one point below the top four.

Substitute Juan Cabal headed Juventus in front in the 64th, three minutes after coming off the bench. Bologna defender Torbjørn Heggem was shown a red card five minutes later for denying a clear scoring opportunity.

In Germany, Bayern Munich needed an 87th-minute penalty from Harry Kane to rescue a 2-2 home draw against bottom-place Mainz but still managed to extend their lead at the top of the Bundesliga to nine points.

Goals from Lee Jae-sung and Kacper Potulski had put the visitors in the driving seat after Lennart Karl’s first-half opener for the Bavarians, before Kane was brought down and then netted his 18th league goal of the season to save the hosts’ blushes.

Bayern are in top spot on 38 points, with RB Leipzig second on 29 following Friday’s 3-1 loss at Union Berlin and Borussia Dortmund in third, on goal difference, after their 1-1 draw at Freiburg. Dortmund had Jobe Bellingham sent off early in the second half and then conceded a 75th-minute equaliser from Freiburg’s Lucas Höler. Ramy Bensebaini broke the deadlock for Dortmund in the first half but the balance shifted when Bellingham was dismissed for a last-man foul on Philipp Treu after the break.

In France, Odsonne Édouard scored with a header in each half as Lens beat Nice 2-0 at home to move back ahead of Paris Saint-Germain at the top of Ligue 1.

Édouard gave the surprise front-runners a 15th-minute lead with a brilliant glancing header from Matthieu Udol’s cross and nodded in another left-wing cross from Udol in the 57th. Lens are one point ahead of PSG after 16 matches.

Marseille stayed third by beating Monaco 1-0 at home after Lille had won 4-3 at Auxerre.

Ligue 1 top scorer, Mason Greenwood, scored his 11th goal for Marseille this season with a curler into the top right corner from near the penalty spot, after being well set up by midfielder Pierre-Emile Højbjerg in the 82nd minute.

Lamine Camara thought he had opened the scoring for Monaco shortly after half-time with a fine shot from just outside the penalty area. But the goal was ruled out for an earlier offside from Monaco forward Folarin Balogun.

Greenwood went close with a strike midway through the second half and made no mistake with his next chance.

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