1 goal, 1 assist: Real Madrid forward impresses in the draw against Rayo Vallecano | OneFootball

Real Madrid missed a glorious opportunity to go atop the La Liga table as they could only muster a draw against their cross-town rivals, Rayo Vallecano.

The two Madrid sides played out a thrilling match, with Rayo Vallecano opening the scoring quite early in the game. By the 36th minute, the home side was already 2 goals ahead of the Merengues.

But only three minutes later, Federico Valverde launched a rocket of a shot that started Los Blancos’ comeback. Then right on the cusp of half-time, Jude Bellingham scored another goal that allowed his team to go into the break on equal terms and allowed himself to continue on his hot scoring streak.

Real Madrid even went ahead in the first phase of the second half, as Rodrygo Goes scored another beautiful goal from the edge of the area.

Rayo once again equalised through Isi Palazon 8 minutes later, and the game ended in a draw as there were no other goals scored after this.

Real Madrid left a lot to desire with their performance, but there were some players who still impressed, and the brightest of them on the night was Rodrygo Goes, who took advantage of the absence of Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior from the starting lineup to showcase his talents on the pitch.

In addition to his goal, he also got the assist for Jude Bellingham’s goal as he put in a pinpoint cross for the Englishman to node into the bottom right corner of the Rayo goal.

In addition to these direct goal contributions, the Brazilian also impressed in other aspects of the game, which would have been very encouraging for Carlo Ancelotti and the Real Madrid fans to see.

For instance, as Sofascore statistics show, he provided 3 key passes in this game and created 1 big chance. Similarly, all of his 3 crosses were accurate and he won 4 of his 6 attempted dribbles.

Rodrygo was also not shy to put in the required defensive effort, as he made 2 interceptions and 1 tackle in this game.

Thus, the Brazilian would have been quite sorry to not see his team win the game despite making these contributions. Hopefully, he will continue with the form that he showed in this game, and help his team as Real Madrid look set to enter the crucial month of January.