Rodrygo Brace Earns Madrid Victory Over Sevilla

Rodrygo hit a brace to earn Real Madrid a 2-1 win over Sevilla in La Liga on Saturday, sending his side four points clear of third-place rivals Atletico Madrid. Madrid were without injured winger Vinicius Junior, who drew global support during the week after he was racially abused by Valencia fans last weekend. Carlo Ancelotti's team were also missing injured duo Karim Benzema and Marco Asensio in attack.

Rodrygo was Madrid's only fit regular starting forward. After Rafa Mir gave the Europa League finalists, who face Roma on Wednesday, the lead, Rodrygo made his chance count with two goals, the first from a free kick.

"It's hard to choose. They were both nice goals, maybe the second a little bit more but scoring from a free-kick is always special," Rodrygo told DAZN.

"We always practice them and talk about it before, whoever is the most confident takes it and I took the ball."

Ancelotti took off Rodrygo with 10 minutes remaining.

"I was a bit annoyed with him because I wanted to score one more, a hat-trick, but it's OK, he told me that like this we would win," said Rodrygo.

Sevilla coach Jose Luis Mendilibar rotated many of his usual starting players at a rain-soaked Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan stadium to prepare for the final against Jose Mourinho's side.

Mir slammed a rebound into the roof of the net to send Sevilla ahead in the third minute after Bryan Gil's shot was blocked.

Rodrygo should have equalised but fired off-target when well placed, after good build-up play by Dani Ceballos and Lucas Vazquez.

However, the Brazilian soon pulled Real Madrid level from a free-kick, curling his effort around the wall and into the bottom corner, wrong-footing goalkeeper Yassine Bounou.

Mir came close again early in the second half