sportggist

Atletico Madrid came within a whisker of their first league win over Barcelona in eight years on Saturday only for Ousmane Dembele to dash their hopes with a dramatic equaliser in injury-time. Diego Costa looked to have won a dreary contest at the Wanda Metropolitano when he headed in his first La Liga goal since February with 12 minutes left, as Atletico prepared to go top of the table with a long-awaited victory. Instead, Barca produced another fightback as Dembele, on as a substitute, slid home a cool finish in the 90th minute to earn the visitors a 1-1 draw. The relief was palpable in the celebrations of the luminous yellow shirts in the corner but perhaps just as grateful were Real Madrid, beaten 3-0 by Eibar earlier in the day. Santiago Solari had proven the perfect caretaker but his debut as permanent coach ended in a disastrous, and deserved, defeat at Ipurua. Madrid's only consolation was that neither Atletico nor Barca were able to secure the win that would ...

Real Madrid´s interim coach Santiago Solari said "Bale is fantastic", but still took him off in the 71st minute against Real Valladolid on Saturday. Madrid were drifting towards a 0-0 draw at their Santiago Bernabeu home and, searching for inspiration, it was Bale´s number 11 that came up. He departed to whistles from the fans even if Solari, perhaps deliberately, spared him being being replaced directly by Vinicius Junior. Nevertheless, the 18-year-old came on two minutes later and made the difference, his shot deflecting in to give Madrid the lead. "Another day, Gareth will score," Solari said. "And everyone will celebrate." But those quickest to criticise Bale are circling again ahead of the trip to Viktoria Plzen in the Champions League on Wednesday. Support for Vinicius has been intense and Bale is seen as the one standing in the way. "Vinicius puts Bale in trouble," read the frontpage of AS on Monday. One week into his sti...