{"id":16946,"date":"2025-08-18T06:04:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=16946"},"modified":"2025-08-18T06:04:04","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T06:04:04","slug":"atletico-beaten-by-espanyol-in-la-liga-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=16946","title":{"rendered":"Atletico beaten by Espanyol in La Liga opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Espanyol staged a late comeback to grab a shock 2-1 win over Atletico Madrid on Sunday as Diego Simeone&#8217;s men made a disappointing start to their La Liga campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Pere Milla scored a late winner as Atletico stumbled to defeat in Barcelona despite leading through Julian Alvarez&#8217;s brilliant goal.<\/p>\n<p>Atletico have been busy in the transfer market, with notable arrivals including Alex Baena, David Hancko, Johnny Cardoso and Giacomo Raspadori, in a bid to challenge Barcelona and Real Madrid for the title.<\/p>\n<p>Angel Correa, Rodrigo De Paul and Cesar Azpilicueta have all departed as part of the rebuild after Simeone&#8217;s team finished third, 12 points behind champions Barca last term.<\/p>\n<p>Barcelona kicked off their title defence with a 3-0 win at Mallorca on Saturday, while Real Madrid host Osasuna on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Slovakia centre-back Hancko had the best chance of a cagey opening half-hour for Atletico but could only head straight at Espanyol goalkeeper Marko Dmitrovic.<\/p>\n<p>The visitors forged ahead in spectacular fashion in the 37th minute, though, as Alvarez curled a free-kick into the top corner, well beyond the dive of Dmitrovic.<\/p>\n<p>Alvarez went close to doubling Atletico&#8217;s lead just before the hour mark when he crashed a shot against the post.<\/p>\n<p>Espanyol hit back 17 minutes from time as Miguel Rubio netted after a set-piece.<\/p>\n<p>Substitute Milla completed the turnaround, heading in Omar El Hilali&#8217;s cross to snatch all three points for the home side in the 84th minute.<\/p>\n<p>Athletic Bilbao got off to a winning start as substitute Robert Navarro&#8217;s late goal sealed a dramatic 3-2 victory over Sevilla.<\/p>\n<p>Nico Williams&#8217; penalty and Maroan Sannadi&#8217;s strike put the Basque club two goals up at half-time at the San Mames.<\/p>\n<p>But Dodi Lukebakio fired in off the post on the hour to cut the deficit before Lucien Agoume drew Sevilla level with 18 minutes to play.<\/p>\n<p>Navarro had the final say in the 81st minute, though, giving Bilbao an opening win as they look to back up a fine campaign last term when they finished fourth to qualify for the Champions League.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Espanyol staged a late comeback to grab a shock 2-1 win over Atletico Madrid on Sunday as Diego Simeone&#8217;s men made a disappointing start to their La Liga campaign. Pere Milla scored a late winner as Atletico stumbled to defeat in Barcelona despite leading through Julian Alvarez&#8217;s brilliant goal. Atletico have been busy in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}