\n<\/p>\n
Xabi Alonso gets his first victory as Madrid manager, despite his football side playing most of the game with only 10 players.<\/em><\/p>\n Jude Bellingham and Arda Guler scored late in the first half to help 10-man Real Madrid to a 3-1 victory over Pachuca in a Group H clash played amid sweltering conditions in Charlotte, North Carolina, the United States.<\/p>\n Federico Valverde\u2019s sliding volley in the 70th minute sealed Xabi Alonso\u2019s first victory as Madrid manager on Sunday.<\/p>\n The result puts his side\u2019s FIFA Club World Cup campaign back on track after a dramatic 1-1 draw against Al Hilal in Wednesday\u2019s opener, and despite Sunday\u2019s early dismissal of defender Raul Asencio.<\/p>\n Real Madrid can clinch a place in the last 16 with a win or draw against RB Salzburg on Thursday in Philadelphia. Al Hilal play Salzburg later on Sunday in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n Thibault Courtois made 10 saves for the victors, though he could do little on Elias Montiel\u2019s 80th-minute deflected effort that provided Pachuca with a consolation goal.<\/p>\n The Mexican side was beaten despite leading their Spanish foes by 25-8 in shots overall and 11-3 in efforts on target.<\/p>\n But as in Pachuca\u2019s 2-1 Wednesday loss to Salzburg, it was their opponents who had more quality in their attacks.<\/p>\n Referee Ramon Abatti showed no hesitation in dismissing Asencio in the seventh minute for denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity after the Madrid defender hauled down Salomon Rondon just beyond the penalty area.<\/p>\n Real Madrid\u2019s Raul Asencio walks off the pitch after being shown a red card [Susana Vera\/Reuters]<\/p>\n But after absorbing pressure for most of the opening half-hour, the Spaniards raced out to a 2-0 lead in the half\u2019s final 15 minutes.<\/p>\n In the 35th, Gonzalo Garcia\u2019s quick flick-on freed Fran Garcia down the left. The latter then picked out the late run of Bellingham, who collected a square ball and slid his low finish past Carlos Moreno from 15 yards.<\/p>\n In the 43rd, it was Guler providing the finishing touch from inside the area on another flowing Madrid move, this time with Gonzalo Garcia providing the final square pass after Trent Alexander-Arnold\u2019s first-touch cross.<\/p>\n Pachuca continued to apply pressure after the break, with Courtois forced to push Bryan Gonzalez\u2019s early-second-half effort over the bar and John Kennedy\u2019s 61st-minute strike from distance well clear of his left post.<\/p>\n But Valverde\u2019s well-taken goal effectively killed the game and Real Madrid held on for an impressive win.<\/p>\n Bellingham, who was named the player of the match, hailed the spirit of his teammates after the game.<\/p>\n \u201cWe stayed together well [after the red card]. Obviously, Raul [Asencio] made a mistake. He is young and it will happen,\u201d he told DAZN.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was impressive to see how the team came together and won the game.\u201d<\/p>\n Alonso singled out Courtois for praise.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are so happy to have [Courtois] in goal,\u201d he told DAZN after the match.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was so reliable, especially when we had one player less. We defended with a lot of sacrifice and waited for our chances.\u201d<\/p>\n In the earlier Club World Cup game on Sunday, Kenan Yildiz scored two goals and had a hand in another as Juventus beat Wydad Casablanca 4-1 to close in on a place in the last 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Xabi Alonso gets his first victory as Madrid manager, despite his football side playing most of the game with only 10 players. Jude Bellingham and Arda Guler scored late in the first half to help 10-man Real Madrid to a 3-1 victory over Pachuca in a Group H clash played amid sweltering conditions in Charlotte,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[1410,103,1412,339,130,442,1413,1408,150,1409,455,1411,550],"class_list":{"0":"post-9304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-asencios","9":"tag-beat","10":"tag-card","11":"tag-club","12":"tag-cup","13":"tag-early","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-madrid","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-pachuca","18":"tag-real","19":"tag-red","20":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}