BARCELONA, Spain — Malaga held on to beat Athletic Bilbao 1-0 to kick off the Spanish league on Saturday after new coach Javi Gracia’s winning debut was almost spoiled by two of his players earning red cards in a wild finale.
Gracia’s first victory with Malaga was followed by positive starts for Valencia manager Nuno Espirito Santo, Espanyol’s former player-turned-manager Sergio Gonzalez and Joaquin Caparros at Granada.
A 10-man Valencia salvaged a 1-1 draw at Sevilla with a late goal, while Sergio Garcia scored in stoppage time as a 10-man Espanyol drew 1-1 at Almeria. Granada managed to come from behind to beat visiting Deportivo La Coruna 2-1.
Malaga scored in the 34th minute when Luis Alberto converted the rebound from his own penalty after goalkeeper Gorka Iraizoz blocked his spot kick.
The season opener was far from spectacular, but Malaga’s balanced defence did well to neutralize Bilbao’s talented set of attacking players.
“We weren’t brilliant, just efficient,” said Gracia, who took over Malaga after his Osasuna was relegated last season.
“We didn’t have possession of the ball, it was theirs. But I think that through 96 minutes we played defence well. We played the last minutes in disadvantage and we kept fighting.”
Roque Santa Cruz earned the penalty to set up Alberto’s winner by poaching Carlos Gurpegui’s backpass and drawing a foul from Iraizoz in the area.
Malaga limited Bilbao to Mikel Rico’s header by the far post in the 65th and Guillermo Fernandez’s header into the arms of goalie Carlos Kameni in the 87th.
That was until tempers flared near the end, when Malaga lost two players with direct red cards and gave Bilbao its best chance of the match.
Sergio “Duda” Barbosa was first sent off for shoving Bilbao’s Iker Muniain to the turf in the 88th, and Vitorino Antunes compounded that error by earning his exit with a dangerous tackle to cut down Fernandez two minutes into stoppage time.
Iraizoz came forward in the final minute and thought he had grabbed an unlikely equalizer when he headed into the net, but the referee disallowed the goal because a line judge apparently ruled a Bilbao player offside on the free kick.
Even Gracia praised Iraizoz and questioned the referee’s decision to annul the keeper’s goal.
“I saw a great goal by Gorka,” said Gracia. “I saw the line judge lift his flag, but I don’t know why.”
Bilbao must quickly regroup from its stumble. The Basque club hosts Napoli on Wednesday in the second leg of their Champions League playoff after they drew 1-1 in their first meeting.
In Seville, Valencia’s Pablo Piatti went close in the eighth with a shot that bounced off both posts, but forward Aleix Vidal put Sevilla ahead in the final minute of the first half following Victor “Vitolo” Machin’s precise long pass to spring Carlos Bacca on the break.
Sevilla lost goalkeeper Antonio “Beto” Bastos to a left thigh injury in the first half. He was replaced by signing Mariano Barbosa.
Valencia played a man down from the 66th after Rodrigo de Paul received a direct red card for elbowing Vidal in the face, ending the Argentine’s European debut just one minute after he had gone on as a substitute.
Sevilla, however, failed to take advantage of the sending off, and Valencia substitute Lucas Urban chested a deflected shot over the goal line in the 88th to secure a point.
Espanyol appeared to be finished after defender Aritz Arbilla got his second booking in the 33rd minute and Almeria’s Fernando Soriano fired the ball in off the upright in the 52nd.
But Garcia controlled a long pass with his chest before unleashing a low shot that grazed a defender and squirmed inside the post four minutes into injury time.
Granada rallied to ruin Deportivo La Coruna’s return to the top flight on a night when neither goalkeeper had a good day.
Deportivo struck first in the 20th when Granada goalie Stole Dimitrievski let Ivan Cavaleiro’s shot slip by.
Granada forward Ruben Rochina levelled with a long strike in the 55th before defender Jean-Sylvain Babin completed the comeback in the 77th when he flicked in a free kick while keeper German Lux made no effort to reach either the cross or his header.
