Real Madrid continue stuttery start with Sociedad defeat

Real Madrid continue stuttery start with Sociedad defeat
By Euronews
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Welcome to The Corner, our weekly round-up from the world of football.

We start in Spain where Real Madrid suffered a slip up. The giants of European football failed to register a win in the second week of La Liga.

After leading by two goals in first 11 minutes Real lost 4-2 against Real Sociedad.

Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti has invested heavily this summer to further improve his strike force.

But as good as they looked up front they were poor in defence and were ruthlessly picked apart by Real Sociedad, who sealed a famous victory.

Despite the big-money signings of Toni Kroos and James Rodriguez the departures of Angel Di Maria and Xabi Alonso have exposed some frailties in a Real Madrid side overflowing with attacking talent.

Not the best of starts

Ajax are another big team stumbling at the start of the new season.

The reigning Eredivisie champions lost to PSV Eindhoven last week, and followed that up with a defeat to Groningen.

At the end of the fourth match day, they have dropped to 7th place.

It was truly a game of two halves in Groningen – the only difference was the home side were able to transform their 45 minutes of dominance into two goals.

Ajax were the better side in the first half but failed to convert.

They were punished in the second with goals from Eric Botteghin and Michael de Leeuw.

Botteghin hit the mark in the 48th while substitute de Leeuw sealed the win in the closing moments of the game to hand Ajax their second straight defeat.

Ajax have now won two and lost two from their opening four games and sit six points behind leaders PSV Eindhoven while Groningen are second three points adrift.

No Blues for Chelsea

Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea sounded the warning bells to their rivals when they beat Everton 6-3 for their third straight win which sees them at the summit of the Premier League.

New signing Diego Costa continues to impress chipping in with a brace.

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Chelsea are firing on all cylinders at the start of this season, as is their summer marquee signing Costa who appears to relish every moment in front of goal with The Blues.

His two on the night took his tally to four goals from his first three matches at Chelsea.

Last season goals were hard to come by for the Londoners: It’s a different story this time as they have netted 11 goals so far en route to the top of the table with a perfect record.

Everton have the second best goal scoring record with seven.

Collateral damage

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Ukrainian football has been suffering from the political turmoil surrounding the country.

In the last week, the training pitch in Donetsk used by top flight club Shakhtar, was hit by shelling as was the club’s Donbass Arena which five days prior was also damaged as a result of the ongoing conflict.

According to the club two shells hit directly into the main building destroying the upper level where the main squad of the team used to live.

The club added ‘The leisure zone and the exercise room were completely destroyed’.

The Donbass Arena, which hosted a semi-final at the Euro 2012 championship, has also been damaged by shelling.

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Shakhtar moved their headquarters to Kiev from the strife-torn city of Donetsk which has become a stronghold of pro-Russian separatists:

The club’s home games are now played in the western city of Lviv.

We might be wrong

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It’s that time again for our predictions. After a below-par performance from us during the World Cup we’ll have a crack at the following international friendlies.

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Send us your predictions, on the social networks, using the #TheCornerScores.

So here there are – in a repeat of the World Cup final we feel Germany and Argentina will play out a one all draw – we tip Spain to beat France 2-1 and Italy and the Netherlands to play out a goalless stalemate.

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