JAKARTA - New Real Madrid coach Alvaro Arbeloa finally won his first victory. Madrid successfully beat the bottom team Levante 2-0 in a Spanish LaLiga match at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, Saturday, January 17, 2026 WIB.
Arbeloa made a disappointing debut after Madrid suffered a defeat in the Copa del Rey. Ironically, Madrid was defeated by the lower division team of LaLiga 2 Albacete 3-2.
Eliminated in the Copa del Rey, Madrid bounced back when they returned to LaLiga. Appearing at home, Madrid had to work hard before defeating Levante.
The victory over Levante makes Madrid manage to cut the points gap with the leader of the standings Barcelona. Now, Madrid who has 48 points and is still one point behind Barca. However, Barca will get away from Madrid's pursuit if they beat Real Sociedad.
Meanwhile, Levante is increasingly difficult to get out of the relegation zone after suffering a loss for the 11th time. Levante is ranked 19th or two strips below with 14 points.
In that match, Arbeloa deployed a different squad. This time, Madrid appeared with full strength, including Vinicius Junior and Jude Bellingham who were starters. Striker Kylian Mbappe also returned to be a starter and Arbeloa retained Gonzalo Garcia. Only he was shifted by occupying a position on the right wing.
Even though they played the best team, Madrid had trouble facing Levante's solid defense. In addition, Los Merengues failed to show maximum performance. They played slowly so that there were no attacks that endangered the guest team's goal.
The best opportunity was obtained by Mbappe who had undergone treatment after colliding with defender Dean Huijsen during warm-up before the match. However, Mbappe's volley shot which received a long pass was still wide.
The score was still 0-0 at the end of the first half. As a result, the players were booed by their own supporters when they walked to the locker room.
Entering the second half, Arbeloa rearranged the composition of the players by including young players, Franco Mastantuono and Arda Guler.
The coach's strategy, who celebrated his 43rd birthday, also gave positive results. Madrid's attacking game became more alive. As a result, they didn't have to wait long to break the deadlock when they were awarded a penalty in the 58th minute.
The referee awarded a penalty after Mbappe was brought down by defender Adrian de la Fuente in the penalty area. And, the captain of the French national team himself executed the penalty so that Madrid was ahead 1-0.
This is Mbappe's 19th goal this season. He has also bagged 50 goals in 53 matches in LaLiga. However, Mbappe failed to break Madrid's all-time top scorer record, Cristiano Ronaldo, who only needed 51 matches to score 50 goals.
After the goal, Madrid completely controlled the game. The offensive attack of Los Blancos also returned to produce when defender Raul Asencio scored the second goal in the 65th minute. This goal was created after Asencio's header successfully greeted Guler's corner kick.
The 2-0 lead made Madrid more aggressive playing offensively. They even almost added a goal through Bellingham. It's just that Bellingham's header to welcome Federico Valverde's cross could be stopped by goalkeeper Mathew Ryan.
Likewise, Vinicius Jr's efforts can still be thwarted by Ryan. There were no additional goals and Madrid won the match with a 2-0 lead.
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