{"id":1603,"date":"2014-02-09T03:47:47","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T03:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=1603"},"modified":"2014-02-09T03:47:47","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T03:47:47","slug":"gareth-bale-scores-on-his-return-as-madrid-top-la-liga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/gareth-bale-scores-on-his-return-as-madrid-top-la-liga\/","title":{"rendered":"Gareth Bale Scores On His Return As Madrid Top La Liga"},"content":{"rendered":"<p itemprop=\"description\">Gareth Bale scored the opening goal as Real Madrid beat Villarreal to go top of La Liga.<\/p>\n<p>The Welshman chipped home after seven minutes and assisted Karim Benzema&#8217;s close-range second.<\/p>\n<p>Mario Gaspar pulled one back with a fierce first-time drive but Jese put Real Madrid in control with a delicate finish.<\/p>\n<p>Giovani Dos Santos scored a brilliant free-kick for the visitors but Benzema sealed it from 18 yards.<\/p>\n<p>Real Madrid, who were without the suspended Cristiano Ronaldo<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/0\/football\/26019678\">,<\/a>\u00a0are now unbeaten in 23 games in all competitions.<\/p>\n<p>With this result, Madrid have climbed to the top of the Spanish league on goal difference after rivals Atletico Madrid lost 2-0to Almeria.<\/p>\n<p>Barcelona, who visit Sevilla on Sunday, could overtake both sides on goal difference with a victory.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gareth Bale scored the opening goal as Real Madrid beat Villarreal to go top of La Liga. The Welshman chipped home after seven minutes and assisted Karim Benzema&#8217;s close-range second. Mario Gaspar pulled one back with a fierce first-time drive but Jese put Real Madrid in control with a delicate finish. Giovani Dos Santos scored [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,81],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1605,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603\/revisions\/1605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}