Alaves Rout Getafe 3-0 at Mendizorroza on Opening Weekend of LaLiga

Alaves routed Getafe 3-0 at Mendizorroza on the opening weekend of LaLiga, in a match that stayed tight for almost 90 minutes before breaking open late with two goals in stoppage time. The game was also marked by the sending off of Kiko Femenia after a VAR review, which left the Madrid side down to ten men for the entire second half.

A tense, cagey first half

The match opened up scrappy, with plenty of fouls on both sides and hardly any clear chances. Alaves created the first sniffs of danger through Nahuel Tenaglia and Toni Martinez, but couldn't find the target. The moment that defined the first half came right before the break: in the 40th minute, the referee was called to the monitor by VAR and overturned an initial red card shown to Kiko Femenia, only for the Getafe fullback to be sent off anyway a minute later, in the 41st. With that dismissal, the Madrid side had to play the entire second half a man down. Despite the extra man, Alaves couldn't find a breakthrough before halftime, and the sides went into the break scoreless.

Alaves breaks the deadlock late

The second half followed the same script, with Alaves piling on chances (shots from Abde Rebbach, Angel Perez, Toni Martinez and Denis Suarez) without beating goalkeeper David Soria, while Getafe defended with discipline despite being down a man. Javi Calleja's substitutions, bringing on Mariano Diaz and Mikel Rodriguez, proved decisive. The first goal came in the 72nd minute, when Nahuel Tenaglia headed home a cross from Mariano Diaz to make it 1-0. The match appeared to be settled in stoppage time: in the 90th minute, Mariano Diaz capped a counterattack with a strike from outside the box to make it 2-0, and just three minutes later, in the 93rd, Mikel Rodriguez, again set up by Mariano Diaz, sealed the 3-0 final score with a finish from the center of the box.

The numbers back up the home side's dominance

The stats clearly reflect Alaves's superiority, as the hosts were more incisive despite facing a rival that played a man down for 49 minutes.

According to an in-house estimate calculated after the match based on the shots taken, Alaves generated 1.796 expected goals compared to 0.554 for Getafe, a gap that confirms the final score wasn't a fluke but the product of far greater chance creation over the 90 minutes.

A result that exceeded expectations

Pre-match projections had pointed to a much tighter contest, with 39% odds for Alaves, a 32% chance of a draw and 29% for Getafe, along with combined expected goals of 2.27 (1.24 for the hosts and 1.03 for the visitors). Reality ended up blowing well past that forecast: Alaves didn't just win, they did so with a level of authority the preview hadn't anticipated, helped in no small part by Femenia's early red card.

What the result means

With this win, Alaves opened the season at the top of the table, with 3 points from their only match played, while Getafe are left with none and a heavily negative goal difference to start the league campaign. The 3-point gap between the two sides in the standings shows how much this opening round carries, though with just one match played by each team, there's still a whole season left to play.