Atletico Madrid’s chances of retaining their La Liga title suffered a blow as they were held at home by Valencia to slip seven points behind new leaders Barcelona.
Koke fired Atletico into a first-half lead as Diego Simeone’s side chased a sixth straight home league win.
Valencia equalised through Shkodran Mustafi’s 78th-minute header before defender Javi Fuego was sent off.
The visitors held on to stay just one point behind Atletico in fourth place.
Barcelona’s 6-1 win over Rayo Vallecano earlier in the day had put the pressure on Atletico not to slip up with the two sides due to meet on the penultimate weekend of the season.
Despite missing the suspended Antoine Griezmann, who has scored 17 times this season, Simeone started with 20-goal top scorer Mario Mandzukic on the bench.
That meant a chance for former Chelsea and Liverpool striker Fernando Torres, despite his failure to score in La Liga since returning to the Vicente Calderon on loan from AC Milan in January.
Torres, 30, gave no shortage of effort without seriously threatening to break his duck before being replaced by Mandzukic after an hour.
However, he did play a part in Koke’s goal, heading down a free-kick for Tiago Mendes to lay the ball off for the Spain international to thump a right-footed shot into the bottom corner from 16 yards.
Valencia showed little of the form that had seen them climb the table to challenge Atletico’s hold on a top-three place and automatic Champions League qualification.
Atletico should have doubled their lead 20 minutes from time when Tiago volleyed against the bar from close range after Diego Godin had headed a corner back across the face of goal.
But that miss proved costly when Mustafi headed in after a long-range free-kick had come back off the crossbar.
Fuego then picked up a second caution in the 89th minute but Valencia extended their unbeaten run to five games to stay in the hunt for automatic Champions League qualification.
Real Sociedad beat Espanyol 1-0 as David Moyes’ side made it three wins from their last four home games.
Sergio Canales got the only goal as Sociedad climbed to 11th, one place and two points behind Espanyol.
Villarreal stayed on course for a place in next season’s Europa League as they beat mid-table Celta Vigo 4-1 to move to within a point of fifth-placed Sevilla.
Giovani dos Santos opened the scoring as Villarreal bounced back from the disappointment of losing to Barcelona in the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey to hand Celta their first defeat in six games.
Mateo Musacchio, top scorer Luciano Vietto and Gerard Moreno were also on target.
