Iron Legs Answer the Challenge! Carvajal Creates Penalty and Scores as He Stars in Real Madrid's Thumping Victory

As reported by AS, Carvajal has not backed down since Cucurella's arrival. On September 13 against Rayo Vallecano, he started the match, created a penalty and scored himself, shining brilliantly across the board at the Bernabeu. Mourinho had described him before the match as having "fully fueled legs," and this game proved just that. In the 13th minute, Carvajal's run forward was cut down by Lejeune, earning a penalty that Mbappe converted; four minutes later, he received a give-and-go pass from Vinicius and calmly pushed it into the near corner to score. Last season he was involved in just 5 goals (2 goals, 3 assists) for the entire campaign, but in this match alone he was involved in 2 goals. Over the full match, he created 3 chances, completed all 2 of his dribbles, won back the ball 3 times, made 3 clearances, and recorded 3 interceptions (joint-highest on the team with Diomande). He won 6 of 8 duels and had an 88% pass accuracy rate over 54 passes (second-highest number of successful passes on the team), with 90 touches also ranking second on the team. Near the end of the match, Mourinho substituted on Cucurella but kept Carvajal on the pitch, meaning the two played together. After the game, Carvajal praised the entire team's performance, expressed his happiness at scoring, and mentioned the manager's demand to maintain high intensity, noting the introduction of Cucurella (as per the original text).