Madrid, Jan 5 (IANS/EFE): Valencia defeated Real Madrid 2-1 in the Spanish La Liga, ending the European champions' 22-game winning streak.

Cristiano Ronaldo had gotten the visitors on the board first in the 13th minute from a penalty kick Sunday, but Antonio Barragan evened things up in the 52nd minute and Nicolas Otamendi knocked in a header 13 minutes later for the win.

The match was hard-fought with a significant number of of chances, although Valencia showed considerably greater drive, which allowed them to make their decisive comeback in the second half.

The home team's Piatti went out with an injury and Gaya was shown a yellow card for coming onto the pitch too early, just one of seven yellow cards presented in the first half.

Madrid is now just one point above Barcelona, who also suffered a shock 0-1 defeat at the hands of Real Sociedad.

"I don't think we deserved to lose," said Ancelotti. "We just didn't have the luck to score when we had the chances to make it 2-0, then to go ahead 2-1 and finally at the end when we had many chances to make it 2-2."