Valencia 3 - 1 Atletico Madrid


David Silva returned from long-term injury to inspire Valencia to a victory against Atletico Madrid that takes them into second place in La Liga.

Spain striker David Villa opened the scoring from the spot on 34 minutes before Silva added the second.

Diego Forlan pulled one back from a penalty before half-time, but Silva's second goal of the match, just over 20 minutes from the end, put the result beyond doubt.

A breathless start to the match could have led to three goals in the first five minutes, the best of which was Villa's disallowed goal just 90 seconds into the match. Incredibly, it was the Euro 2008 Golden Boot winner's second decent chance of the game: he won the ball fairly and slotted past Franco in the Atletico goal, but was harshly adjudged to have pushed Heitinga to the floor.

Two minutes later a goalmouth scramble led to another disallowed Valencia goal - this time for offside - and the hectic tempo continued for the first 20 minutes with a succession of clear-cut chances falling for both sides.

Yet for all the attempts the opening goal came from a 34th minute spot kick by Villa, awarded just 60 seconds after Villa was denied a clear penalty for a blatant shoulder charge by Perea. With the ball coming into the area, Valencia midfielder Ruben Baraja performed an extraordinary dive in the penalty box which was inexplicably adjudged to be the result of a foul.

It looked as if the referee was correcting his earlier error, and Villa despatched the penalty into the right corner to give Valencia a deserved lead.

Just five minutes later, Valencia's right-back Luis Miguel played a beautiful pass to release Silva, the playmaker finding just enough space to control the ball and flick a brilliant shot into the far corner from the outside of his left foot.

But as half-time beckoned the referee once again took centre stage, awarding another soft penalty at the other end of the pitch for the contact by Baraja on Sergio Aguero. Forlan scored from the spot to reduce the deficit to one.