With an easy win over Getafe, Real Madrid went back to the top of La Liga. On Sunday, they play Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid.

Mason Greenwood and Jude Bellingham played their first game against each other. Both teams had strong second halves, but Madrid’s substitute attacker Joselu did the most to win.

He scored two goals in each half, giving him 12 for the season. Not bad for a striker who has only played nine games so far and has to listen to people complain all the time that Madrid “doesn’t have a center-forward.”

At the start of the game, both teams made mistakes. Vinicius went down when Jose Carmona tackled him, but he never asked for a penalty. 

Then Greenwood almost stole the ball from Real Madrid’s Andriy Lunin when he slipped.

Carlo Ancelotti started Luka Modric and Joselu. From Modric’s cross, Joselu hit the crossbar while the flag was up for offside. The play would have had to be checked.

Soon after, a long ball from the back sent Vinicius clear, but David Soria blocked his shot. The flag stayed down. 

The first goal came on the next chance, and it was another move that Ancelotti made that paid off. 

It was only Lucas Vazquez’s fifth start of the season, but Joselu scored when he crossed the ball from the right side. It was his 11th goal of the season and his sixth straight goal.

Bellingham had a quiet beginning, but he broke through to give Real Madrid their first corner, but it didn’t do anything. 

After Vinicius’s pass, he ran on to it but couldn’t find a teammate when he took it back.

At the same time, Greenwood had been very quiet. The first time he found his speed, Antonio Rudiger rushed across the field and slammed into him, taking the ball and almost the player out of play. 

Both of them got up and limped away from the fight, but the German fell again right away; the knee-to-knee hit hurt him a lot more.

After the break, Rudiger did not come back. Real Madrid is already without two of their best center-backs, David Alaba and Eder Militao, so they hope he doesn’t stay out for too long.

Greenwood, on the other hand, got off to a great start in the second half. He cut in from the right and hit the post with a low shot. He was now on the right side, where he was making things harder for Real Madrid.

This is when Ancelotti’s team took their foot off the gas. But even at half speed, they only needed a half chance to score, and Joselu scored his second goal of the game on 56 minutes.

It was Bellingham who passed the ball to Ferland Mendy, who then set Vinicius up. He passed the ball to Joselu, who beat Soria with one touch and then beat Omar Alderete with the next. Alderete picked on Joselu a lot when he didn’t have the ball, but he didn’t get close to him when it mattered, which cost Getafe a goal.

It was almost three, but it was past that time. Bellingham’s sharp through ball set Joselu free, but he did the right thing by squareing the ball to Vinicius. Vinicius tried to lift the ball over Soria, but the keeper was able to catch the soft shot and keep it out of danger.

Soon after, Vinicius missed another one-on-one, this time from a Bellingham pass. It should have been four by now, but Getafe was getting away with it.

Even though they paid, Borja Mayoral hit the post when Lunin was the only player left to beat. He then cut in from the right and took another shot that just missed the post.

Across the field, Bellingham sent the Getafe defense in two different directions before firing at goal with a shot that was blocked for a corner. 

After three minutes, Madrid’s top scorer was taken off, and Joselu came on to score two more goals. He didn’t get a hat-trick, though, because he was kind to Vinicius.

Madrid won, so they didn’t need the third goal. They are now back on top of the table. Ancelotti was not happy with the game’s end, though, and was given a yellow card. Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea had booked Eduardo Camavinga, which meant he couldn’t play in Sunday’s Madrid match. He walked out onto the field to complain to the referee as the game was ending.