RC Celta de Vigo 2-1 Deportivo Alavés: Primera Division Match Report, 18 October 2026

Nothing had been scored by half-time and then three goals were: **RC Celta de Vigo 2-1 Deportivo Alavés**, from a 0-0 interval. That split supports one narrow statement — every goal in the match belonged to the second period — and no more than that. Nothing is published beneath the two scorelines, so the order the goals came in, and whether Celta had to recover a lead or protect one, cannot be reconstructed.

The table had the two sides closer than the standings order suggests. Celta arrived 11th on eight points from eight games at +2, Alavés 7th on eleven from eight at +4 — four places and three points between two clubs whose seasons had been odd in opposite directions. Celta had drawn five of their eight and won one. Alavés had won three, drawn two and lost three, and had taken their points in a block rather than a trickle.

Both records hide a lopsided detail. Celta's only win was 5-0 against Racing Santander: five of their eight goals for the season in one afternoon, three across the other seven matches. Alavés's eleven points were a front-loaded haul — ten of them from the first four rounds, one from the next four, with defeats to Racing, Valencia and Atlético and a goalless draw at Athletic in between. The better-placed side came in with the worse recent evidence, which the positions alone will not tell you.

The head-to-head suggested a tight one, and it was. Four meetings sit on record, three of them decided by a single goal, and 2-1 at this ground is exactly how the August 2024 fixture finished. Last season the clubs split the pair: Alavés won 4-3 in Vigo in March, Celta 1-0 in Vitoria in November.

Readers will not find a preview for this one in the archive. Nothing was published here for a month, these rounds went by uncalled, and the report is the record we can still put straight.

In the table it produced an odd symmetry. Celta move from eight points to eleven and from +2 to +3; Alavés stay on eleven and come back from +4 to +3. Nine games in, the two clubs are indistinguishable — level on points, level on goal difference — which is a fair summary of a fixture settled by one goal after a goalless first half.

For Celta it is a second win of the season and the first in a month, and it doubles their home tally: two wins from five at home, with both home defeats coming in August. Three points were a more urgent requirement than the position implied, because five draws in eight is a way of standing still.

Alavés have now gone five matches without a win, and taken a single point from them. They finished 14th last season on 43 points, so eleven from nine is still ahead of that pace — but the first four rounds are doing all the work, and a side that has stopped winning does not stay seventh on an August haul for long.