Jude Bellingham struck an 87th-minute equaliser to rescue a point for Real Madrid in a thrilling 2-2 contest against Elche, a result that still allowed Los Blancos to stay narrowly ahead of Barcelona in the LaLiga title race.
The England midfielder reacted quickest to a loose ball in the dying minutes, cancelling out a late rocket from Álvaro Rodríguez, whose stunning effort against his former club had appeared set to hand Elche their first victory in six matches.
Elche had twice taken the lead, with Aleix Febas’ composed finish early in the second half opening the scoring before Dean Huijsen levelled for Madrid 12 minutes from time.
Both teams carved out huge openings in a lively first half that somehow produced no goals.
Kylian Mbappé wasted an early chance from Raúl Asencio’s pass, while André Silva sent a promising opportunity wide from a German Valera delivery.
Thibaut Courtois kept Madrid in it with a sharp save from Rafa Mir after Héctor Fort dispossessed Álvaro Carreras, and the visitors’ frustrations grew as Asencio and Arda Güler both failed to hit the target.
Elche should have punished them moments later when Silva broke through one-on-one with Courtois but elected to square for Mir, allowing Huijsen to intervene.
Mbappé then squandered two more openings, the first due to a heavy touch as he bore down on goal, and the second saved brilliantly by Iñaki Peña from Trent Alexander-Arnold’s pinpoint cross.
Peña continued to shine after the interval, pushing away a Rodrygo effort, but it was Elche who struck first.
In the 53rd minute, Valera’s clever backheel released Febas, who slotted past Courtois.
Xabi Alonso introduced several substitutes in search of momentum, including Vinícius Júnior.
The Brazilian nearly created a leveller in the 72nd minute when clean through, but his attempt to square for Mbappé was cut out by Álvaro Núñez.
“We spoke about it, [Vinicius] understands it, he knows the role and the impact he could have, we’ve done it other times, like against Getafe,” Alonso explained when asked about benching his star forward. “We’re not as happy as we could be, but we want to get back to good results and good form.”
Madrid finally made their pressure count in the 78th minute as Huijsen reacted fastest after Elche failed to deal with a corner, smashing in the equaliser.
Elche refused to fold, and both Mir and Martin Neto went close before Rodríguez unleashed a ferocious strike from the edge of the area on 84 minutes, a moment that sent the home fans into raptures.
But Real Madrid were not done. With three minutes left, Bellingham forced the ball over the line following a scramble from a free kick, despite Peña bleeding from a clash, protesting for a foul that never came.
Elche’s evening worsened when Víctor Chust received a second yellow card in stoppage time after bringing down Mbappé.
“It’s football. After a good run, now we’ve had some results that aren’t what we want,” Alonso said. “We aren’t happy, because we always want to win. But now we have a lot of games before the end of the year, and we have to think about the next one, analysing what happened today.
“The team is still competing. The context of each game is different. We can improve, we’re self-critical, but the team spirit is still good. We have to respond to adversity. A result which isn’t favourable leads to criticism and we have to live with that, but we want to improve.”
