Real Madrid crashed to a chaotic 2-0 defeat at home to Celta Vigo, finishing with nine men and a stadium full of stunned faces as Fran Garcia and Alvaro Carreras was both sent off in the final stages. Two goals from Williot Swedberg did the damage, hammering a serious dent into Madrid’s title push and chucking Barcelona four points clear at the top of La Liga.
It was an ugly night all round for Xabi Alonso’s team, who also lost Eder Militao to injury and has now won just one of their last five league matches. The club finally returned to the Bernabeu after six games on the road due to that peculiar NFL takeover, but the homecoming was about as miserable as it gets.
With a Champions League clash against Manchester City looming on Wednesday, Alonso rotated heavily, resting Antonio Rudiger and throwing Carreras into a patched up back line. That gamble lasted about 20 minutes, with Militao pulling up and Rudiger rushed on anyway, the plan already in shreds before the match got going.
Celta, who set up in a compact low block and basically dared Madrid to try something clever, frustrated the hosts for most of the night. Ionut Radu made sharp stops to deny Jude Bellingham, Arda Guler and Vinicius Junior, while Mbappe was smothered to the point of irrelevance. Madrid looked short of ideas and lighter up top than usual, even with all their flashy attackers on the pitch.
The breakthrough arrived on 54 minutes, and it was a beauty. Bryan Zaragoza whipped a cross from the left and Swedberg flicked the ball past Thibaut Courtois with a ridiculous bit of improvisation. Madrid was rattled, literally in Bellingham’s case, as he bled from a clash with Borja Iglesias, and the mood nosedived from tense to absolute panic within minutes.
Fran Garcia then lost his head, picking up two yellows in the space of a minute, the second for a clumsy swipe at Swedberg leaving Madrid with ten men and a mountain to climb. Mbappe lobbed onto the roof of the net, Gonzalo Garcia headed wide, and that was about the extent of their comeback effort before the wheels truly came off.
Carreras saw red in stoppage time for dissent, screaming at referee Alejandro Quintero as the Bernabeu boiled over. With Madrid utterly gone, Celta nicked a second as Swedberg rounded Courtois and tucked it home, sparking wild scenes in the away end and a fair bit of booing everywhere else.
The result leaves Madrid four points behind Barcelona, who now has the title momentum heading into a busy winter stretch. And with Haaland and Manchester City up next in Europe, Alonso’s night somehow got worse just by thinking about it.
For Celta, who has spent most of the season scrapping at the wrong end of the table, it was a win nobody saw coming. For Madrid, it might just be the moment the season properly derailed.