{"id":402410,"date":"2018-02-19T08:58:31","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T08:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=402410"},"modified":"2018-02-19T08:58:31","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T08:58:31","slug":"asensio-hits-brace-real-madrid-edge-betis-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=402410","title":{"rendered":"Asensio hits brace as Real Madrid edge Betis in thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sp-story-body__introduction\">Marco Asensio scored twice as Real Madrid beat Real Betis to secure a third successive victory.<\/p>\n<p>Zinedine Zidane&#8217;s side took the lead when Asensio nodded in, but Betis equalised through Aissa Mandi.<\/p>\n<p>Nacho&#8217;s own goal put Betis ahead at the break but Sergio Ramos, Asensio and Cristiano Ronaldo scored to put the defending champions in control.<\/p>\n<p>Sergio Leon&#8217;s late goal caused a few nerves at 4-3 before an injury-time fifth from substitute Karim Benzema.<\/p>\n<p>Real had come from behind to\u00a0beat Paris St-Germain 3-1\u00a0in the first leg of their the Champions League last-16 tie last week.<\/p>\n<p>There was plenty of determination about that performance, and this one owed much to the quality of their finishing after Ramos headed in following a corner.<\/p>\n<p>The third and fourth goals in particular &#8211; scored by Asensio and Ronaldo &#8211; were clinical strikes.<\/p>\n<p>Substitute Leon pulled one back for Betis with five minutes left when he got on the end of Junior&#8217;s cross, but Real held on but any nerves were eased by Benzema.<\/p>\n<p>Fourth-placed Real are 17 points behind La Liga leaders Barcelona, who\u00a0beat Eibar 2-0 on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Zidane&#8217;s side are 10 points behind second-placed Atletico Madrid and a point behind Valencia in third.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC Sport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marco Asensio scored twice as Real Madrid beat Real Betis to secure a third successive victory. Zinedine Zidane&#8217;s side took the lead when Asensio nodded in, but Betis equalised through Aissa Mandi. Nacho&#8217;s own goal put Betis ahead at the break but Sergio Ramos, Asensio and Cristiano Ronaldo scored to put the defending champions in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":402422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[17175,6304,8244],"class_list":["post-402410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-asensio","tag-real-madrid","tag-ronaldo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=402410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/402422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=402410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=402410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=402410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}