Real made to wait for title
Manuel Pellegrini’s side has shown far more determination than Barcelona in pursuit of the league leaders, even if results haven’t always gone their way, and the coach said after a hard-fought win at Real Betis: “It was important for us to reach second place, four points ahead of Barcelona. Our duty is to remain there to ensure Champions League football next season.”
On Saturday, Manchester United’s next opponents went to Deportivo La Coruna, but in truth they hardly turned up. It was hard on their back-up keeper José Manuel Pinto who was given his debut behind a group of players who were mainly going through the motions.
Neither Lionel Messi nor Samuel Eto’o played or was on the bench and the attack made little impact on La Liga’s current form side. “The team was here” insisted Frank Rijkaard after the game, but it was evident that their minds were elsewhere.
Fortunately for the Catalans there were setbacks for all the contenders below them, including Racing Santander, beaten 3-1 by Mallorca, and Atletico Madrid and Sevilla who were both held away from home.
At the bottom Levante are now relegated and Murcia are almost certain to follow. But there are six clubs who could potentially go down with them, including both Getafe and Valencia. Remarkably there are only 14 points separating Zaragoza, in the last relegation spot, from Sevilla who are currently in a position to qualify for the UEFA Cup.
With the champagne put away for another week in Madrid, Javier Saviola did his best to get the crowd going with a goal in the 13th minute, but the star of the show was goalkeeper Iker Casillas, who pulled off three stunning saves within the space of five first-half minutes, the last of them from a penalty.
Madrid went on the attack after the break, and a double change by coach Bernd Schuster in the 72nd minute produced an instant result with both the substitutes, Gonzalo Higuain and Arjen Robben, scoring within four minutes of coming on.
Next week Madrid travel to Osasuna hoping to wrap up the title so that they can be presented with the trophy at the following home game — against Barcelona.
THE Dutch FA has announced a simpler European qualifying system for next season. Both the Eredivisie champions and the runners-up will go forward to the Champions League and the play-offs involving teams second to fifth are to be scrapped. The sides finishing third and fourth will automatically qualify for the UEFA Cup, with a play-off between the teams placed fifth to eighth, to decide the third qualifier. The Dutch Cup winners qualify automatically. This season winners are Feyenoord, who beat Roda 2-0 yesterday.
TWELVE points ahead with four matches to go, goal difference of plus 41, Bayern Munich just have to tie the ribbons after an excellent 4-1 win against champions Stuttgart.
Behind Bayern, Werder Bremen could only draw 3-3 at Karlsruhe, which allowed Schalke to draw level on points with a vital 1-0 win at Hamburg. It was Kevin Kuranyi’s sixth goal in three games, and ended Hamburg’s hopes of Champions League qualification. With Bremen facing the tougher run-in, Schalke’s chances of second look promising.
INTER Milan’s 2-1 win against Cagliari yesterday kept them six points ahead of Roma in second place, despite a 4-1 win for Luciano Spalletti’s side against Torino.
Juventus also made mathematically sure of qualifying for the Champions League with a 5-2 defeat of Lazio. Juve are finishing in style with 15 goals in their last four games.
A 2-2 draw between Fiorentina and Sampdoria provided some hope for Milan, 4-1 winners at Livorno, who are now two points short of that vital fourth place.
BORDEAUX can still catch Lyon after the champions dropped points in their 2-2 draw with Caen, but they failed to score in their home match against Nice and remain four points behind. At the bottom PSG are making a fight of it, beating Auxerre 3-1. The three teams struggling to avoid the third relegation slot are PSG, Toulouse and Lens, all clubs who had aspirations to qualify for Europe rather than drop to Ligue 2.
On Sunday night Marseille ran out 3-2 winners at Monaco. Marseille are now third, a point ahead of Nancy.
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