SEVILLE (Reuters) – Joao Felix scored twice as he helped Atletico Madrid earn a 3-1 win at Real Betis in LaLiga on Sunday, making certain they leapfrogged their rivals into fourth place within the standings.
Atletico are tied on 48 factors with third-placed Barcelona, who received 2-1 at Elche, though the Catalans have a recreation in hand. Both groups path leaders Real Madrid by 15 factors.
Betis, who began the weekend in third place, dropped under Barca and Atletico to fifth place with 46 factors from 27 video games.
Felix opened the scoring within the first minute with a close-range strike from an Angel Correa cross.
Betis equalised simply earlier than the break when Cristian Tello fired house an angled shot from the sting of the field.
The champions dominated following the break. Felix scored his second after Marcos Llorente led a fast counter-attack earlier than crossing to the Portuguese, who made the ultimate contact from contained in the field.
Substitute Antoine Griezmann, who’s slowly working his means again from harm, offered the cross that allowed Thomas Lemar to full the 3-1 victory within the eightieth minute.
Felix has scored 4 objectives in his final 4 video games in all competitions and has been instrumental in reviving Atletico’s hopes of securing a Champions League place after their troublesome begin to the season.
“We are having fun with an amazing momentum,” Felix advised reporters after Atletico’s third consecutive league win.
“I feel we had been missing perspective earlier than however now it’s all clear, the locker room is united in chasing the identical aim… if we preserve taking part in like this, we are going to preserve profitable.”
Both groups created quite a lot of scoring alternatives throughout the entertaining encounter, with Betis annoyed again and again by some spectacular saves from Jan Oblak.
The Slovenian stopped a curled effort from Joaquin immediately from a nook kick and blocked a minimum of three additional makes an attempt from the Betis gamers.
“Only like this, with this depth, we will preserve preventing for the league,” Oblak advised reporters.
“The season is lengthy and something nonetheless can occur so we are going to preserve grinding till the top.”
(Reporting by Fernando Kallas, modifying by Pritha Sarkar)
