SEVILLA MOVED TO the top of the early La Liga table on Sunday as Joan Jordan’s brilliant free-kick helped them seal a 1-0 win at Alaves.
Julen Lopetegui’s side continued their excellent start to the campaign, remaining unbeaten and moving a point clear of Atletico Madrid at the summit, after Atleti fell to a 2-0 defeat at Real Sociedad on Saturday.
Sevilla host Real Madrid next Sunday in a meeting of two sides yet to taste defeat.
“That means nothing (being top),” said Sevilla coach Lopetegui, whose team next face a marathon trip to Baku to play Qarabag in their Europa League opener on Thursday.
“The only thing that tells me is that the team is doing things well. We have to keep improving before going to Baku, where they will make it very difficult for us.”
It was a first defeat of the season for Alaves, who slipped to 11th in the standings.
Lopetegui, who joined Sevilla for his first job since being sacked in quick succession by both Spain and Real Madrid, saw one of his close-season signings produce the game’s defining moment.
Midfielder Jordan, who arrived at Sevilla from Eibar for a reported €14 million curled home a wonderful free-kick in the 37th minute which flew into the top corner to give him his second goal of the season.
The visitors comfortably saw out the match to claim their third league win this term, as Alaves failed to muster a shot on target.
Elsewhere on Sunday, Robert Ibanez’s 81st-minute equaliser kept Osasuna unbeaten after a 1-1 draw at Valladolid, while Granada moved up to seventh with a 2-0 success at nine-man Celta Vigo and Espanyol won at Eibar.
Real claimed a 3-2 win over Levante at the Santiago Bernabeu on Saturday, when reigning champions Barcelona eased to a 5-2 victory against Valencia, with 16-year-old Ansu Fati scoring inside two minutes.
A very sick season os Soccer/ Football continues…
After all that it doesn’t even shoe the pen.
No surprise there, that competition makes most of its income from bribes. That’s the reason there are doubts over next year’s Copa America in the USA as most of the money already spent on it has been in bribes.
Feel bad for Panama but it’s the same deal with UEFA seeding play-offs at the last minute to those countries with a bigger TV audience make the big tournaments. Ireland know all about how bad that feels.
Shocking scenes it’s far more aggressive in Central American football I think.Watched Club America v San Jose last week and the Club American lads reacted to everything but horribly aggressively,they always seem to feel the need to put their hands on the opposition for any foul commited ,in fact after one tackle a San Jose player went down injured and the Club A captain raced from one side of the pitch to push him while he was down and was red carded.After the game a fan invaded the pitch and the San Jose mascot which was no more than 5’5 was escorting the man off behind police and a player shoved the mascot full force from behind despite the fan doing nothing to him/the game being over and his team had just won.Completely unnecessary and could see this last night too.More protection is needed for players/refs and fans from these sort of teams.On the other hand Jamaica are in the final which is pretty sweet!managed by the lad who managed Cameroon in the 2002 WC against us.
Ay caramba!
Anyone else think this was a stonewall penalty?
ya he pretty much dived on the ball
It’s like an anti-Thierry Henry incident.
More than enough time with all that going on to check a replay