Rayo Vallecano cruised to a 3-0 win over Atletico Madrid on Sunday in La Liga, leaving Diego Simeone’s team 15 points adrift of leaders Real Madrid.
The defeat dropped Atletico to fourth place after a heavy loss at Leganes’s Butarque Stadium, where Rayo hosted the match due to pitch issues at their Vallecas home ground.
Fran Perez, Oscar Valentin, and Nobel Mendy scored for Rayo, who fully deserved the victory against an Atletico side that had recently beaten Spanish champions Barcelona 4-0 in the Copa del Rey on Thursday.
With the Copa del Rey being their best shot at a trophy this season, Atletico have appeared distracted in La Liga—a lack of focus that showed in this humbling defeat to their city rivals.
The Rojiblancos have now gone three league games without a win. “It seems like the league has slipped away, we can’t lose games like this and we can’t play a game the way we did today,” angry Atletico goalkeeper Jan Oblak told DAZN.
“Competing like this is going to be to tough, you can’t choose your games, every game has to be played at the highest level…
“Today they were much better, congratulations to them, we lost and deserved to lose.”
Inigo Perez’s Rayo took the lead in the 40th minute when Fran Perez finished Andrei Ratiu’s cross, and Oscar Valentin doubled their advantage after Clement Lenglet gave the ball away.
Nobel Mendy netted the third in the 76th minute after some more poor Atletico defending to round off a miserable afternoon for Simeone’s side.