Real Madrid beat Elche 3-2 on Tuesday night, and the winner came from a substitute who barely had time to settle in. Carlos Espí was sent on with three minutes of normal time left at Martínez Valero and scored with only four minutes on the pitch, turning a match that had looked comfortable into one decided at the last breath.
That is why the result is being searched now. Real Madrid had controlled the first half, built the better chances and still had to survive after Elche scored two late goals to draw level before Espí finished it. It was Real Madrid’s second late winner from the bench this season, and Espí’s second goal in just 26 minutes across five appearances, a return made more striking by the fact that he has not played more than the 10 minutes he got on his debut against Espanyol.
The match also carried a statistic Real Madrid had been waiting on for a long time. Arda Güler scored direct from a free-kick, his first such goal for Real Madrid, and he became the first player at the club to do so since Rodrygo Goes against Sevilla on May 27, 2023. That gap of 115 games was Real Madrid’s longest direct free-kick drought on record, stretching well beyond the previous mark set between 1969 and 1972.
There was more than one number that explained why Real Madrid came away relieved. Yan Diomande recorded his first assist for the club and finished with seven dribbles and three chances created. Real Madrid also struck the woodwork again, and no side in La Liga has hit the post or crossbar as often this season; Barcelona’s next-highest total is four. Those misses sat alongside a performance that produced the club’s highest expected goals total of the season.
The scale of the chance creation was there from the start. Real Madrid put up 2.03 expected goals in the first half, then only 0.52 between minutes 46 and 90 before Espí’s two injury-time efforts added 1.01 expected goals in less than a minute. The numbers point to the same conclusion the scoreline did: Real Madrid had control, lost it, and then found a substitute who needed almost no time to restore it.
Elsewhere in the same statistical frame, The Frenchman reached another sharp milestone, becoming the first man since Hugo Sánchez in 1987 to score seven goals in six games at the start of the La Liga season for consecutive campaigns, a feat Pruden Sánchez had previously managed in 1946. He also joined Hugo Sánchez and Karim Benzema as the third Real Madrid player to score against every team he has faced in La Liga, and finally did so against Elche. For Real Madrid, the standings question is less about the table than the pattern: they are still finding ways to win, but not always the simple kind.
