#2. The battle for the 2 Europa League spots will come down to the final week. After this week’s matches there are 4 teams tied at 43 points in pursuit of European positions.
Atletico Madrid’s tendency to play down or up to their opponents level was on the downside as they lost 2-0 at Mallorca. Los Colchoneros are holding on to 5th place with the edge in goal differential.
Valencia broke out of a 6-game winless streak with a big 1-0 road win against Racing to move into 6th place and back into a European spot. Juan Mata scored in the 77th minute to get the 3 points.
Malaga was this week’s victim of the Barcelona goal scoring machine as the Blaugrana destroyed the newly promoted side 6-0 at the Camp Nou. The lethal trio of Henry, Messi, and Eto’o each scored with Eto’o scoring twice to bury the Andulsian side. Malaga is now in 8th place.
The other team battling for a Europa League spot is Deportivo La Coruna. Depor drew 1-1 at home to Real Betis wasting an opportunity to move into 5th place by themselves. The draw puts them in 7th place.
Here are the results from Week 28 – home teams listed first:
Saturday, March 21
Villarreal 2 – 0 Athletic Bilbao
VIL: Cazorla (68′) & Fernández (91′)
Sevilla 4 – 1 Valladolid
SEV: Kanouté (7′, 42′, 69′) & Luis Fabiano (57′)
VLD: Goitom (21′)
Sunday, March 22
Deportivo La Coruna 1 – 1 Real Betis
DLC: Verdú (8′)
BET: Sergio García (32′)
Numancia 2 – 1 Sporting Gijon
NUM: Barkero (43′) & Goiria (54′)
SPG: Barral (46′)
Osasuna 1 – 0 Espanyol
OSA: Nekounam (92′)
Racing Santander 0 – 1 Valencia
VAL: Mata (77′)
Getafe 2 – 1 Recreativo Huelva
GET: Soldado (63′ & 67′)
REC: Maidana (46′)
Real Madrid 3 – 0 Almeria
RMA: Marcelo (23′), Huntelaar (52′ & 65′)
Barcelona 6 – 0 Malaga
BAR: Xavi (19′), Messi (25′), Henry (32′), Eto’o (44′ & 56′), Alves (51′)
Mallorca 2 – 0 Atletico Madrid
MAL: Aritz Aduriz (23′) & Gonzalo Castro (90′)
STANDINGS
