Valencia Vs. Espanyol: Los Che Leads Off Corner Kick Goal

Valencia have the lead after 29 minutes thanks to a great directional header off of a corner kick by striker Aritz Aduriz. Espanyol have held their own thus far, but Espanyol have been the aggressors, with Aduriz’s goal being the third shot on target for the hosts.

Joaquin was the man who delivered the corner, and it was a great right footed out-swinger from the winger. Aduriz made a diagonal run from the center of the box to the far post to get on to the ball and directed a fantastic snapped header across the face of goal, hitting the far post and bouncing in. It was perfectly directed, leaving Carlos Idriss Kameni completely helpless.

Interestingly enough, just before the corner kick, Valencia had a shout for a penalty kick and a straight red card on Kameni. Aduriz ran onto a through ball in the box, entering into a 50-50 challenge with Kameni. As Aduriz tried to round Kameni, the Espanyol keeper went down and appeared to make contact with the Valencia striker, but the ball was elsewhere and Aduriz was unlikely to reach it into a good position to shoot. Additionally, Aduriz appeared to embellish contact. Because Kameni didn’t deny a clear goal scoring opportunity, he shouldn’t have been sent off, but since he made contact, he probably should have been shown a yellow card and Valencia should have been granted a penalty. Since it wasn’t a red card offence and Valencia scored on the ensuing corner, everyone should be happy that the referee didn’t seriously affect the game either way.