Espanyol versus Real Madrid – Second half review – Part 1
The second half kicked off with Espanyol on the front foot as they pushed towards their first attack of the match in the 48th minute of the second half.
However, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Chelsea-c38786 centre back stalled the home team’s offensive move.
In the 49th minute of the encounter, Marcelo was stopped in his tracks http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/AS-Real-c38478 Madrid embarked on a counter attack. The Brazilian full back was the subject of a shirt tug by Chica as the referee whipped out a yellow card for the Espanyol right
back.
Real continued to sit back and play on the counter attack in the second half as well. This strategy worked well for them due to their numerical disadvantage.
In the 52nd minute of the match, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Cristiano-Ronaldo-c9629 was on his way inside the Espanyol penalty area but his progress was halted by a shirt tug. The referee took immediate action as he showed Espanyol’s defender, Amat a yellow card for the tug.
The ensuing free kick was taken by Ronaldo himself. The Portuguese forward worked Kameni into an easy save before Espanyol cleared their lines to prevent Real Madrid from scoring another goal.
Espanyol found it hard to break down Real Madrid’s defence as in the 58th minute of the match, Sergio Garcia, was played in by his midfield partners but Espanyol’s star player fired his shot high and wide of Real Madrid’s goal as the score line
remained at 0-1 to the away side.
Despite having majority of the possession, Espanyol were unable to manufacture any definitive chances for their strikers. Ricardo Carvalho and http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Pepe-c29670 had an easy time at the back as Sergio Garcia was not provided sufficient through balls to feed upon in the
second half.
In the 66th minute of the match, Carvalho was booked by the referee for a late tackle on Callejon. It was a smart foul by the Portuguese centre back, as Espanyol were on their way towards a counter attack but the foul on Callejon forced the referee
to stop play.
Shortly after that, Espanyol made their first change of the night as http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Álvaro-c5280 Vazquez replaced Sergio Garcia.
Real Madrid line-up: Casillas, Arbeloa, Pepe, Carvalho, Marcelo; Xabi, Khedira, Di Maria, Ozil, Ronaldo; Adebayor
Espanyol line-up: Kameni, Chica, Amat, Forlin, Galan, Marquez, Verdu, Baena, Luis Garcia, Callejon, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Sergio-c33030 Garcia
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