Real Madrid and Barcelona Stay Top
Primera Liga Rivals Maintain their Title Challenge but Valencia Lose
Real Madrid and Barcelona maintained their pursuit for the Primera Liga title with home victories but Valencia's challenge ended with defeat to Villarreal.
Real Madrid and Barcelona remain top of Spain’s Primera Liga. Both won their home games this weekend but Valencia’s challenge floundered with an unexpected defeat at home to Villarreal. UEFA Cup Winners, Sevilla, who are in third place in the league maintained their challenge with a home win against Real Zaragoza.
Valencia 2 Villarreal 3
With two matches remaining, Valencia have dropped out of the challenge for the title. The defeat leaves them seven points behind the joint leaders. The match had started well for them, taking the lead midway through the first half with a David Villa penalty. However, Villareal equalised ten minutes before the interval when Diego Forlan, the former Manchester United player, scored. Into the second half and Valencia were to regret a series of missed chances when the visitors secured their victory with two goals in the final eleven minutes of the game. Substitute, Jon Dahl Tomasson scored with his first touch and then set up Forlan for his second to give them an unassailable lead. Villa scoring his second, was only a consolation, for Valencia in the final minute.
Real Madrid 3 Deportivo La Coruna 1
Real Madrid ensured they retained top position in La Liga with a ninth win in ten games. David Beckham who was recalled to the England squad earlier in the day was the star of Real’s 3-1 victory over Deportivo La Coruna. After a quiet start to the game Beckham created the first goal after almost half an hour by putting in a cross which Ruud van Nistlerooy deflected to Raul whose shot was blocked but the ball fell for Sergio Ramos to score. Protests that van Nistlerooy had handled the ball were turned away by the referee.
At the start of the second half, Beckham hit the woodwork from a free kick but then Deportivo equalised through Capdevila. They were level for only three minutes before Raul restored Real Madrid’s advantage with a headed goal from a Beckham cross. Real continued to look for goals and with fourteen minutes remaining secured their victory when van Vistlerooy scored his twenty third League goal of the season to maintain their challenge for their first title in four years.
Barcelona 1 Getafe 0
Barcelona remain level on points with Real after their single goal victory over Getafe when Brazilian, Ronaldinho was the hero and the villain. He scored the vital goal after two minutes and it looked as if Barcelona were going to continue on their goal scoring ways but then he was sent off five minutes before half-time. He kicked out in retaliation at an opponent after a foul and left his team to hold on for the rest of the game with one man short.
Barcleona continued to create chances but being unable to add to their score, as they tired Getafe had opportunities to equalise and Barcelona were grateful for the performance of Victor Valdes in goal.
Sevilla 3 Real Zaragoza 1
Sevilla stay in third place, twopoints behind the leader with this victory over Zaragoza. Having taken the lead midway through the first half through Luis Fabiano, Sevilla were pulled back with only fifteen minutes remaining when D'Alessandro equalised. However, stirred into action again, Sevilla secured victory with two goals in the final seven minutes. Kerzhakov put them ahead and Fredi Kanoute scored in the final minute to ensure victory.
Only Sevilla can prevent Real or Barcelona from winning the title but they must win their two remaining games and rely on both the clubs above them losing one of their games.
