Valencia: Diego Alves; Ricardo Costa, Rami,
Víctor Ruíz, Guardado; Gago (Barragán 46'), Tino Costa;
Piatti (Bernat 72'), Banega, Jonas; Soldado (Nelson Valdez 64'). 4-2-3-1.
Madrid: Casillas; Arbeloa, Varane, Raúl Albiol,
Coentrao; Xabi Alonso (Essien 57'), Khedira (Callejón 74'); Di
María, Özil (Modric 66'), Cristiano Ronaldo; Higuaín.
4-2-3-1.
Goals:
0-1. 08. Higuaín. Connected with Di
María cross to fire shot wide of Diego Alves.
0-2. 34. Di
María. Got on the end of Ronaldo cross to turn ball in on far post.
0-3. 36. Ronaldo. Picked up return Khedira pass and ran on to shoot inside
post.
0-4. 41. Ronaldo. Turned shot past keeper after Özil played back
Di María cross.
0-5. 45. Di María. Ran on to Özil
through ball and steered angled shot past Alves.
Yellow cards: Arbeloa 19', Jonas 23', Coentrao 29', Gago 39', Di María 52', Banega 62', Essien 80'.
Third placed Real Madrid stay seven points behind their city neighbours Atlético after a convincing 0-5 win at Valencia, all the goals coming in a whirlwind first half. Higuaín missed an easy chance with only seven minutes gone, but a minute later he opened the scoring after Özil and Di María combined to set him up. With ten minutes to go to the break Ronaldo crossed in for Di María to score the second on the far post, and two minutes later Ronaldo made it three himself after running in from midfield to fire a shot inside Diego Alves's near post. Soon afterwards Ronaldo got his second of the evening after Özil laid back Di María's cross, and Di María completed the scoring after Özil put him through once again. By then a large part of the crowd had already abandoned the Mestalla stadium, but those that stayed saw their side at least save a bit of pride, Piatti firing a shot against the bar and Coentrao having to clear a Rami header off the line with the keeper beaten. Still they were unable to beat Casillas for the rest of the match, and it will be interesting to see if they can do better when the two teams meet again in the cup on Wednesday.