La Liga’s week nine saw Barcelona maintain their lead at 25 points while Valencia (21), Real Madrid (20), and Atletico Madrid (19) rounded out the top four.
In Monday’s games Real Sociedad and Espanyol tied 1-1 while fifteenth place Girona won 2-1 away to seventh place Real Betis in a tough match that had 11 yellow cards, five in the last fifteen minutes.
In Sunday’s games Villarreal defeated visiting Las Palmas 4-0, Atletico Madrid won away to Celta Vigo 1-0, hosts Leganes beat Athletic Bilbao 1-0 and Real Madrid won at home 3-0 over Eibar. The latter match featured a frustrated Cristiano Ronaldo whose rusty performance and faulty compass exemplified why Real has scored less than half the goals Barcelona has, and nearly half of Valencia’s crop, so far this season.
Atletico showed they were getting back into their groove, sporting an unbeaten away record and a registering a classic win, based on a 28th minute goal by Kevin Gameiro followed by placing 11 players on the defensive for the remaining 62 minutes to secure the win.
On Saturday, Levante and Getafe fought to a 1-1 draw, Real Betis defeated visiting Alaves 2-0 and Barcelona, playing at home and again benefiting from good fortune an officiating largess, walked past last-place Malaga 2-0. Barcelona’s first goal, by Gerard Deulofeu (2 minutes) should not have counted as Lucas Digne’s cross came from behind the goal line. Replays clearly showed the ball had gone out of play. The second goal, by Iniesta off a Messi assist was legal, but required a deflection to find its way into the net.
The match of the week was Valencia’s 4-0 home win over Sevilla. The teams had been playing great football for eight weeks and the showdown seemed destined to produce a tight and well-balanced confrontation. And that was what we were treated to as the score line in no way did justice to the number of goals Sevilla just missed scoring or the quality of the match throughout. Valencia deserved the win but Sevilla were unlucky and not four goals less good than their hosts.
An interesting distinction between the current first and second place teams in La Liga is that while Barcelona has so far played seven of the bottom eight teams on the table Valencia has played seven of the top eleven in these first nine weeks.
Next week features a Real Madrid visit to a tough and surprising promoted side Girona, and fourth place Atleti hosting sixth place Villarreal.
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