Seville (Spain), Sep 27 (IANS) Sevilla thrashed Real Madrid 3-0 as the Blancos suffered their first defeat of the 2018-19 La Liga season and lost a change to climb over archrival Barcelona into the top spot.
Some 41,000 people packed into Seville's Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium for the mid-week contest on Wednesday night, reports Efe news..
Real Madrid, losers in 10 of their last 17 La Liga matches here, began the game knowing that Bar?a had fallen earlier to Leganes, knowledge that should have provided the visitors with extra motivation.
With Dani Carvajal and Isco Alarcon - who underwent an emergency appendectomy on Tuesday - unavailable, Real Madrid coach Julen Lopetegui had to adjust his lineup, while keeping in mind the impending capital derby against Atletico Madrid.
Sevilla's Pablo Machin made only one change to the starting 11 that clobbered Levante 6-2 last weekend, replacing the injured Aleix Vidal with Arana.
The home side were on fire from the start and Blancos keeper Thibaut Courtois was tested just 13 seconds after the kick-off when Andre Silva tried his luck.
The visitors seemed to be sleepwalking compared with the energetic Sevilla squad and a Real Madrid giveaway led to Silva's goal in the 17th minute to make it 1-0.
Silva doubled the lead for Sevilla four minutes later with his sixth goal of the season, converting the rebound after Courtois made the initial stop on Jesus Navas.
Sevilla's Mudo Vazquez hit the cross-bar in the 33rd minute, six minutes before Wissam Ben Yedder increased the advantage to 3-0 with help from some poor defending.
The Blancos returned from the break energized and flew forward in pursuit of goals, but Sevilla maintained their shape under the onslaught.
Luka Modric found the back of the net for Real Madrid in the 53rd minute, only for the goal to be disallowed after VAR detected an offside.
Real Madrid battled on, even after going down to 10 men in the 76th minute with an injury to Marcelo, who could not be replaced because Lopetegui had already used all three of his changes.
Sevilla improved to 10 points from six matches, good enough for fourth place, while Real Madrid are level on points with Barcelona at 13, but the Catalan side have a better goal difference.
