LaLiga English

Atletico stun by tiny Eibar

Atletico Madrid suffered a shocking 2-0 defeat to Eibar, who have the smallest stadium in La Liga with capacity of 8,164.

Eibar took the lead in the 10th minute through Esteban Burgos before Edu Exposito sealed the victory in the 90th minute, allowed them to have seven points clear from relegation zone.

It’s a second defeat for Atletico in a row, who lost Super Cup final to Real Madrid on penalties.

They are currently third on 35 points, eight behind leaders Real Madrid and five behind champions Barcelona who play at home to Granada on Sunday.

“We made a bad start yet again and it’s been happening a lot recently. We really struggled to get going, we lacked hunger after being on a good run. This is a tough blow for us,” Saul Niguez told reporters.

“Ipurua is a small stadium and they know exactly how to play to their strengths here, they beat us in all the second balls and knew how to deal with our attacks. We needed to play with more intelligence.”

Atletico coach Diego Simeone said a bad start in the first half contributed to the results.

“We started very badly, we barely played in the first half and didn’t do what we needed to do.

“It’s always been difficult for us here, when we have won here the games have been very tight and today was similar, but they made the most of our mistakes and we couldn’t take our chances.”