A stunning strike from Vinícius Júnior helped Real Madrid to a 2-0 home win against Villarreal in LaLiga on Saturday as the defending champions provisionally moved level with leaders Barcelona in the standings.
Madrid took the lead in the 14th minute with a deflected long-range shot by Valverde following a Luka Modric corner, before Brazilian forward Vinicius sealed the win in the 73rd with an unstoppable strike into the top corner from outside the box.
The win was marred late on for Madrid by a serious looking injury to defender Dani Carvajal, who was stretchered off in tears.
Madrid are second in the standings, level with Barcelona on 21 points before the LaLiga leaders visit 11th-placed Alaves on Sunday.
The defending champions were in need of a positive performance after losing 1-0 at Lille in the Champions League on Wednesday and being held to a 1-1 stalemate at Atletico Madrid in their previous LaLiga game.
Villarreal, who have made a strong start to their league campaign with five wins from nine games, are third with 17 points.
The visitors started brightly and Real goalkeeper Andriy Lunin had to intervene eight minutes into the game to block a dangerous cross from Nicolas Pépé.
Valverde, however, earned an early advantage for the hosts when captain Modric set up the Uruguayan midfielder from a corner, and the ball bounced off a Villarreal defender and into the net.
Jude Bellingham and Kylian Mbappé had further chances ahead of the break before the pace slowed down following the restart.
Villarreal, without their injured top scorer Ayoze Pérez who has six goals this season, were close to equalising shortly after the break when Álex Baena threatened Lunin’s goal but only found the side netting.
Villarreal’s defence managed to keep Vinícius at bay when the Brazilian grew into the game in the latter part of the first half.
However, the 24-year-old forward eventually found the net later in the second, scoring his fourth league goal of the season.
Real have avoided defeat in their last 41 LaLiga games, the second best streak by a team in the competition’s history after Barcelona’s run of 43 games unbeaten in 2018.
Villarreal managed 12 attempts in total, one more than the hosts but they still came away with nothing.
Information from Reuters contributed to this report.
