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Late on Saturday evening, in the 27th round of the Spanish championship, the battle for the second place ended in a draw between the teams "Valencia" and Madrid's "Real". The match did not stand out with a lot of events and ended without any goals.
0 - 0
90` Ronaldo missed a penalty from 11 meters
After the Champions League match in London against "Arsenal", Madrid's "Real" coach Juan Ramon Lopez Caro made changes to the team lineup - Ronaldo was left on the bench and younger players - Alvaro Mejia, Carlos Diogo, Cicinho, Julio Baptista - were on the field from the beginning of the match, but it did not bring any improvement to the team's offense.
In the quite boring first half at the "Mestalla" stadium in Valencia, there was a lot of fighting in the midfield and both teams struggled to break through the opponent's defense. Just before the break, the only real threat came from "Real" when goalkeeper Iker Casillas had to save a penalty shot by David Villa.
In the second half, after ten minutes of play, Miguel entered the opponent's penalty area and shot the ball at Ruben Baraja, but the shot was very inaccurate. Midway through the half, "Real" had one of the best chances in the game, but after a pass from Zinedine Zidane, J. Baptista's header was superbly saved by goalkeeper Santiago Canizares.
At the end of the match, the Madrid club had a chance to snatch a win - Ronaldo found himself alone against the goalkeeper in the penalty area and was brought down while trying to deceive him. Although Ronaldo handled the ball with his hand just before that, the referee did not notice and awarded a penalty kick to the home team, but S. Canizares saved Ronaldo's shot.
The match ended in a goalless draw, so the situation in the league table remained unchanged, with "Real" and "Valencia" still sharing the second place with an equal number of points. The team that should be most pleased with this result is the league leader "Barcelona", who will have the opportunity to increase their lead against pursuers "Osasuna" on Sunday.
