Gap closes as Betis stun Real
Barcelona fans were in despair last week when they dropped points at Sevilla. On Saturday Madrid visited Seville’s other club, Real Betis, and lost 2-1 thanks to two defensive errors from their 20-year-old Brazilian left back Marcelo.
It looked like being an easy night early on when the Merengues took the lead through Royston Drenthe.
Too easy, according to Betis coach Paco Chaparro, who commented that “Madrid thought the game was already won.”
Betis scored twice just after the half-hour, the second through Mark Gonzalez, signed last summer from Liverpool. Even a second-half appearance from Ruud Van Nistelrooy failed to turn the tide, and all the momentum from the 7-0 thrashing of Valladolid was wasted.
Barcelona duly closed the gap to five points by winning 2-1 at Zaragoza, but it was a hotly disputed win, settled by a debatable penalty for handball seven minutes from end, scored by Ronaldinho, again used only as a second-half substitute.
Barca’s first goal also involved a possible handball, by the scorer, Thierry Henry. It was all too much for Zaragoza goalkeeper Cesar Sanchez who put the decisions down to “the need for a close title race”.
Referee Gonzalez Vasquez certainly did not impress the reporter from Marca, who awarded him 0 out of 10 for his performance. But then Marca is based in Madrid.
No such polemics about Sevilla’s fine 4-2 win at Espanyol, a game that suggests they are recovering last season’s devastating form just at the right time for the Champions League. Two up after 11 minutes through their twin strikers Luis Fabiano and Freddy Kanoute, they added another couple in the space of five minutes in the second half, to move into sixth place.
Just behind them are Almeria whose fairytale season continued with a 1-0 win in the derby game against Murcia. The other contenders for European places are finding it hard to string results together. Villarreal and Racing drew 0-0 on Sunday
Villarreal and Racing drew 0-0 on Sunday, while Atletico Madrid lost at home to Bilbao to make it a bad weekend for the capital.
INTER look even more certain of taking the Scudetto again following their 2-0 win against Livorno on Saturday and Roma’s 1-0 defeat at the hands of Juventus. The gap between first and second is now 11 points and although no one is giving up just yet, it is the battle for Champions League qualification that is likely to have the real edge.
At the moment that battle looks like being Fiorentina and Milan, and Milan’s challenge in Serie A has faltered this last week as players seem more concerned with their match against Arsenal on Wednesday. Goals have dried up again — four in four games — and on Sunday they could only draw 0-0 at Parma. Fiorentina’s 2-1 win over Catania gives them a three-point advantage over the Rossoneri.
Juventus have the advantage of no European distractions and it has showed, with vital victories in their last two matches, both against top six clubs.
PSV’S march towards the title continues to look inevitable after they increased their lead at the top to nine points with a 1-0 win against Willem II that showed the narrow margins between triumph and disaster.
A late penalty was the difference between the two sides.
Willem II deserved at least a point, but they missed chances in both halves and fell to the foot of the table after their 15th defeat of the season.
It was hard on Ajax, who must have been hoping for a better reward after their 6-2 victory against Sparta on Friday night.
But their defeat last week against Roda is the more telling result as far as the title race is concerned.
PSV have been more consistent, primarily because their defence has been the best in the league, while Ajax have drawn too many games.
Five teams are now in contention for second place.
CRISIS for Lyon, delight for Bordeaux. On Saturday, Lyon stumbled again in their pursuit of a record seventh consecutive title, going down 1-0 at Le Mans.
It was their sixth league defeat in a season which has run into trouble over the past month, with dropped points against Nice, Nancy and Saint Etienne, defeat at Lens and a League Cup exit, also at the hands of Le Mans.
So Bordeaux went to Monaco yesterday knowing a win would put them just one point behind France’s ‘untouchable’ champions.
At half-time, and 0-0, it looked as if Bordeaux might miss their chance, but coach Laurent Blanc must have said something, as they scored within four minutes of the restart and then blew the opposition away with another five goals in the last 25 minutes, including two each for Johan Micoud and the Argentinian Fernando Cavenaghi.
Last night Marseille beat Paris Saint-Germain 2-1 to claim fourth spot and put the Parisians under even more pressure.
A FIRST Bundesliga hat-trick for Italy centre-forward Luca Toni was the highlight as Bayern Munich maintained their three-point lead over Werder Bremen.
Bremen’s comfortable 2-0 win against Nurnberg on Saturday put pressure on the leaders, but a second-half Bayern onslaught against Hannover saw the home team’s often fragile defence collapse.
Bayer Leverkusen were disappointed in their pursuit of a Champions League place, losing a two-goal lead in Karlsruhe and coming close to defeat.
Schalke, who went a goal up and then conceded two in 10 minutes to Wolfsburg’s Brazilian striker Grafite. Hamburg took full advantage, winning 3-0 in Bochum and leapfrogging both Bayer and Schalke to go third.
Next weekend promises to be dramatic, with Schalke meeting Bayer and Hamburg travelling to Munich.
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