Madrid, Oct 19: Kylian Mbappe scored a beautiful goal and converted a penalty kick to help Real Madrid beat Sevilla 4-1 despite the absence of the suspended Vinicius Junior in the Spanish league on Sunday.
Madrid moved to third place behind Atletico Madrid and leader Barcelona.
Freiburg wasted a chance to regain first place in the Bundesliga with its first loss of the season – a 2-1 defeat at Bayer Leverkusen – and Monaco lost 1-0 at Lorient to lose its status as the only unbeaten team in the French league.
Mbappe leads Madrid in Vinicius’ absence
Mbappe controlled the ball while turning his body and then used a quick touch to clear a defender before going around Sevilla goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos to score Madrid’s second goal in the 37th minute at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.
The France superstar then converted a 63rd-minute penalty.
Arda Guler had given Madrid the lead in the 30th with a shot into the top corner. Yan Diomande sealed the victory in the 82nd after Manu Bueno had scored for sixth-place Sevilla.
Guler’s goal came minutes after a VAR check of an incident involving Sevilla’s Peque. It resulted in no red card for an apparent elbowing by the Madrid midfielder.
The victory moved Madrid one point behind Atletico and six points behind Barcelona, which won 5-2 at Real Betis on Saturday.
Vinicius was serving the first of his four-game suspension for pulling the hair of an opponent and aggressively confronting the referee.
Monaco unbeaten no more in France
Monaco was guaranteed to retain first place with a win, but host Lorient won thanks to a 61st-minute penalty kick converted by Noah Cadiou.
Lyon later beat Nice 2-1 to top Ligue 1.
Monaco dropped to fifth and is tied on 14 points with Lyon, second-place Paris Saint-Germain, third-place Paris FC and Lille. Paris needed a penalty kick deep into stoppage time to defeat sixth-place Rennes 4-3 at home. Rennes’ Esteban Lepaul scored a hat trick entirely from penalties, the last in the 88th. Lorient moved to seventh place, while Marseille’s form has been bleak this season and new coach Bruno Genesio’s side had won only two of its first eight games overall, but it came from behind to win 5-2 at Angers.
Freiburg trail Bayern
Freiburg took the lead through Derry Scherhant in the 14th minute but the hosts rallied with goals from Ibrahim Maza in the 19th and Patrik Schick in the 76th.
Schick became Leverkusen’s first player to score in each of the opening six Bundesliga matches of a season.
Freiburg remained on 13 points, one point behind both second-place Borussia Dortmund and leader Bayern Munich.
Only Frankfurt had managed to take points off Freiburg, which had won eight of its last nine games across all competitions.
Leverkusen has also made a good start under new coach Carles Martinez, who has now overseen six wins from seven games across all competitions since starting with a shock loss to Elversberg.
Last-place Borussia Monchengladbach lost 2-1 to visiting Hoffenheim. (AP)