Villarreal miss chance of La Liga top spot

Villarreal are unlikely to win the Spanish title, but on the 13th day of the season they went mighty close to taking over from Real Madrid at the top of the league.

With the champions held 1-1 by Murcia on Saturday, Villarreal would have gone a point clear if they had beaten another of the also-rans, Almeria, yesterday evening.

As so often happens to smaller clubs when faced with a big chance, Villarreal blinked and let a one-goal lead slip early on in the second half.

And as against Barcelona, when they lost to two very debatable refereeing decisions, Almeria once again showed that even the lesser teams in Spain are no pushovers.

The same card-happy referee, Ayza Gamza, was again a prominent figure in Mallorca’s 2-1 win at Sevilla — “one of those matches which justify all the love and passion there is for this sport,” said Spain’s top sports paper Marca.

Gamza’s tally this time was nine yellows and one red in a game that was decided by a five-star performance from Mallorca’s Argentinian goalkeeper German Lux.

Last year’s super team Sevilla have now lost five times in 12 games, and their coach Manolo Jimenez blamed a lack of focus in advance of their Champions League encounter with Arsenal.

While two Arsenal old boys, Pascal Cygan and Robert Pires, appeared for Villarreal, two ex-Chelsea players figured in Real Madrid’s game against Murcia.

Arjen Robben, coming back from injury, as so often at his former club, appeared as a substitute, but was ecliped by a rather less well-known former Blue, Quique De Lucas, who scored Murcia’s second-half equaliser.

For Madrid’s Director of Sport Pedrag Mijatovic the setback was a result of players returning tired from international matches. Coach Bernd Schuster, however, refused to look for excuses.

“We started very well, but when we went a goal up we forgot to go for the second. And there was a serious lack of concentration for their equaliser. We knew that Murcia took corners like that and we’d prepared for it in training.”

There was also another setback for Valencia, beaten 1-0 by Racing Santander, and currently just holding on to sixth place in the La Liga, as well as struggling to stay in the Champions League.

Another week of tension at Barcelona, with more talk of a dressing-room divisions and friction between players and coach Frank Rijkaard, ended on an up with a good 3-0 home win against Recreativo.

Both Deco and Ronaldinho missed the game, once again leading to speculation about the future of the Brazilian star, who was reported to have “dropped himself” from the side. Rijkaard was, however, anxious to defend his player from criticism on this occasion, saying that Ronaldinho had trained on his own, but was left out because of tiredness and lack of sleep after a lot of travelling.

But the name on everyone’s lips after the game — even if difficult to pronounce — was Bojan Krkic.

The 18-year-old Catalan with a Serbian passport came on as a replacement for Eidur Gudjohnsen and duly scored his first home goal. “It’s incredible” he said. “Three months ago I was cheering us on from the terraces.”