Real Madrid got its title defence up and running on Sunday grinding out a 4-3 home victory over newcomer Numancia, which shocked the reigning champion by taking the lead twice in the Spanish football league.

In the Italian league, AC Milan, with superstars Kaka, Ronaldinho and Andriy Shevchenko in its line-up, lost 2-0 at Genoa.

It was Milan’s second defeat in the opening two games of the Serie ‘A’ season following a 2-1 home loss to Bologna.

Giuseppe Sculli opened the scoring for Genoa after 30 minutes with Diego Milito adding an injury-time penalty to give the home side its first win over Milan on its own soil since 1983.

Meanwhile, it was a first win of the campaign for Real following its 2-1 loss at Deportivo de la Coruna.Stand-in captain Guti scored Real’s 5,000th league goal to equalise before Gonzalo Higuain netted and Rafael van der Vaart scored his first goal in a Real jersey.

An own goal from Domingo Cisma proved decisive as Real registered its first three points of the campaign — something its rival Barcelona is yet to achieve. Spanish international Santiago Cazorla scored the decisive goal on 27 minutes with a fierce left-footed shot to fire his team to the fourth place.

Real was less convincing against Numancia, on a high after defeating Barcelona, which took a sixth-minute lead with Juan Moreno arriving at the back post completely unmarked to head home. Guti equalised on 18 minutes with the help of a huge deflection, but Jose Barkero put Numancia back in front with a terrific 21st minute long-ranger.

Higuain equalised for Real four minutes later and van der Vaart caught the goalkeeper off guard to put Real in front before an own goal handed Real a 4-2 lead at the interval.

Moreno scored a fantastic free-kick to make it 4-3.