Baena strikes in the 88th as Atletico Madrid edges past Espanyol at the RCDE Stadium

There were barely two minutes left when Alex Baena showed up from outside the box and drilled a right-footed strike into the top left corner. That goal, in the 88th minute, broke a scoreless deadlock that had stretched through almost the entire match and gave Atletico Madrid a 0-1 win at the RCDE Stadium. Espanyol, who had defended with discipline for an hour and a half, came away with nothing in the final stretch.

The match followed a fairly clear script from the start: Atletico piled up chances while Espanyol focused on defending and waiting for its moment. As early as the first minute, Lee Kang-In tested the keeper from inside the box, and in the 5th minute Jonathan David clipped the crossbar with a shot that came off a cross from Giuliano Simeone. Atletico kept pressing through Dávid Hancko, who forced two shots on the same play right around the 22nd minute, and Morten Hjulmand, who also tried a header on that same sequence. Espanyol had its own flashes: Roberto Fernandez headed narrowly wide in the 31st minute, and deep into first-half stoppage time, Leandro Cabrera smashed a shot off the crossbar from a free kick. Despite all that, the first half ended **0-0**.

A second half of pressure until the final blow

In the second half, Diego Simeone made early changes, bringing on Julian Alvarez and Alejandro Grimaldo for Ademola Lookman and Dani Martinez at the break. Atletico kept controlling the game and creating clear chances: Marcos Llorente forced a good save from the keeper in the 60th minute, Julian Alvarez came close to the top corner in the 75th, and Hjulmand tried another header in the 76th off a corner kick. Espanyol, after bringing on Cala, Gabriel Moscardo, Javi Puado and Marcos Fernandez, tried to hold on and even had a shot from Gabriel Moscardo in the 77th minute, but couldn't trouble the opposing goal much.

The decisive moment came on a play that summed up the gap between the two sides: Julian Alvarez set up Baena, who finished with a precise strike inside the left post for the final 0-1. There was no time left for Espanyol to respond, though Pol Lozano did try his luck from outside the box in stoppage time without success.

What the numbers say

The stats confirm the visitors' control throughout the match. Atletico held the ball far more often and created considerably more chances, though it struggled to turn that edge into goals until the closing stretch.

The post-match xG calculated from the game's shots also backs up that dominance: 1.672 for Atletico against 0.539 for Espanyol. Those numbers reflect how much danger each team generated with its shots, not a pre-match projection, but they help explain why the final score ended up modest compared to what Atletico showed on the field.

Our preview published before kickoff gave Atletico a 56% chance of winning, a 26% chance of a draw and an 18% chance of an Espanyol win, with expected goals of 1.79 for Atletico and 0.95 for Espanyol out of a total of 2.75. The outcome matched that favoritism, though the final scoreline fell well short of the total goals we projected: a single goal was enough to seal all three points.

What the result means

With this win, Atletico Madrid moves to 22 points and holds onto second place in LaLiga, 14 points clear of Espanyol, who remain on 8 points after nine matchdays. For Manolo Gonzalez's side it was an afternoon of resistance that ended without reward; for Atletico, another example of how, even in tightly contested matches, it usually finds a way to collect all three points.