La Liga - News and Rumors

[Sheyro_07Seven]

wahhh,..Liliput di kepung 2 klub besar neh,....

Liga Spanyol Tengah Pekan Ini
Dua Raksasa Mengintai Liliput


Jakarta - Tengah pekan ini Liga Spanyol akan menggulirkan pekan ke-9. Cerita masih soal Real Madrid dan Barcelona yang membidik posisi puncak yang kini dihuni Levante.

Levante hingga saat ini masih kokoh di puncak klasemen dengan 20 poin. Mengoleksi enam kemenangan dan dua hasil seri, Levante bersama Barca jadi dua tim yang belum terkalahkan hingga saat ini.

Pekan ini Real Sociedad akan bertandang ke Ciutat de Valencia dan menguji sejauh mana ketangguhan Levante. Apakah sensasi masih bisa diteruskan atau terhenti di tengah pekan ini?

Dengan bermodal semangat serta kolektivitas tim dan rekor selalu menang di tiga partai kandang, tanpa pernah kebobolan, 'Si Kodok' punya peluang meneruskan catatan apiknya. Apalagi rekor tandang Sociedad musim ini tak bagus karena cuma menang sekali dan kalah tiga kali.

Real Madrid vs Villarreal

Madrid yang tengah on fire tentunya akan terus berusaha mempertahankan posisinya di papan atas sekaligus memburu Levante di puncak klasemen.

Modal kemenangan 4-0 atas Malaga akhir pekan lalu akan jadi penyuntik semangat yang bagus bagi pasukan Jose Mourinho. Apalagi mereka akan bermain di Santiago Bernabeu dan menghadapi Villarreal yang tengah "terluka".

'Kapal Selam Kuning' sudah empat pertandingan tak pernah menang dan rekor Madrid di kandang musim ini cukup impresif. Jika rotasi yang (mungkin) akan dilakukan Mourinho berhasil , bisa dipastikan tiga poin akan digamit Los Blancos.

Faktor Cristiano Ronaldo yang tengah mengejar gol ke-100 bersama Madrid serta tajamnya Gonzalo Higuain dan Karim Benzema, akan jadi teror untuk barisan pertahanan Villarreal.

Granada vs Barcelona

Kegagalan Barca merebut poin penuh saat melawan Sevilla kemarin adalah kali pertama Barca gagal mencetak gol di musim ini. Maka laga kontra Granada di Estadio Los Carmenes, Rabu (26/10) dinihari WIB nanti akan jadi pelampiasan Lionel Messi dkk.

Ditilik dari kualitas skuad, Granada jelas bukan tandingan Barca. Apalagi mereka kini terpuruk di posisi ke-18 dan baru mencetak dua gol dari delapan laga berlalu.

Maka jika Barca bisa mengembalikan keberuntungannya di lini depan, tak seperti saat melawan Sevilla kemarin, Granada siap-siap jadi santapan empuk bagi lini depan Los Cules.

Tiga poin tentu dibidik untuk menjaga persaingan mereka dengan Madrid dan juga Levante. Posisi mereka ada di urutan ketiga dengan 18 poin.

http://detiksport.com

[zudomiriku]

Levante are finally dethroned as La Liga becomes a more boring place

At the final whistle in Osasuna, you could have been forgiven for shedding a tear – not just for Levante but for Spanish football too


Levante's Sergio Ballesteros, left, reacts after Osasuna scored during their victory. Photograph: Alvaro Barrientos/AP

It's over. Back to life, back to reality. At last Levante lost and so did La Liga. When the full-time whistle went at the Reyno de Navarra on Sunday, hundreds of Levante fans made their way to the Ciutat de Valencia stadium to welcome back their heroes, waiting for them to return from Pamplona – finally defeated but never forgotten. Meanwhile, all over the country thousands more turned off and tried to forget them, their brief fling over, the drudgery returning. It was good while it lasted. No one expected it to last for so long and no one expected it to reach quite so many. But it did.

Levante are the team that don't buy players on the cheap because they can't afford to; the club whose entire footballing budget for a year could not pay Cristiano Ronaldo for six months, who have spent a grand total of €400,000 on players in four seasons, and whose best paid player earns less in a year than Leo Messi in a fortnight; the team with a captain who is older than the president and heavier too; the club that has only ever won one trophy and that one doesn't even count; the team that are "poor, bad and ugly", even if they do say so themselves. They are football's Expendables and yet they are also the team that forced their way to the top, into people's hearts and on to the agenda.

On Saturday afternoon, Levante boarded an Air Nostrum flight from Valencia to Pamplona. It was striking enough that they weren't going by bus; even more striking were the journalists travelling with them. Sure, the previous week AS had responded to Madrid going temporarily top by splashing a huge yellow "LEADERS!" on their cover and to Levante going properly top the following day by splashing on something about Ronaldo getting a lot of hat-tricks, but they really had become news. On Sunday morning, Marca gave them a double-page spread. During the week, to excited fanfare, Jack Appleman from the New York Times turned up to find out what was going on. What he found was the greatest story in Spain. Rarely had anyone captured the imagination quite like this.

This weekend Barcelona beat Mallorca 5-0 and Leo Messi got his Ted Rogers impersonation all wrong signalling one-two-three after his first goal and going on to score three of them. Real Madrid defeated Real Sociedad, taking them out alone at the top for the first time in a year. Gregorio Manzano survived for another week after Atlético Madrid won 3-1, but won't survive much longer after fans spent the game chanting for him to go. Juan Carlos Garrido took a breath at last as Villarreal won 2-0 against Rayo. There was a much-needed win for Málaga after the referee mistook Romaric's eye for his arm. And Racing Santander had a message for clubs all over the country, winning their first game of the season in the week in which they were left without a president and without a board.

But still Levante mattered. They had created a kind of can-they-really-do it fascination; they were a constant cliff-hanger, leaving everyone waiting for the next jornada. People actually cared and those that didn't pretended they did. For a team that does not even matter in its own city, it was quite something. In the sports desk of one TV station in Madrid, they were crowded round the screen for a game that would normally get barely a passing interest. Next week, the whole country will be watching. This Thursday, next week's kick-off times and dates came out – yes, next weekend's dates came out this Thursday – and the free-to-air "public interest" game had been changed. It was going to be Sevilla. Instead, it was Levante. Everyone wanted to see the revelation – the leaders.

Oh.

Everyone knew that this day would come and Levante's players knew that better than anyone else; it should not have taken this long. So when it did arrive, it had even more of an impact. It took until the 10th game for the team with the smallest budget in the league to be beaten. Not just beaten, but knocked off the top – the position they had miraculously occupied for the first time in their 102-year history. On Sunday afternoon, two scrappy goals in four minutes made it Osasuna 2-0 Levante; come Tuesday morning, once Sevilla have played Granada, Raimon, the groundsman who puts the team flags round the roof of the stadium in league order, like some sort of sad dad with his mug collection, will have to lower the Levante one from the first pole.

"At the kingdom of Navarra stadium, Levante were dethroned," declared Marca. "Levante: back to earth," said AS. They were on the cover of El País and El Mundo. "Levante fall," said el Mundo; "the party's over," said El País. "The dream is over," continued Sport. They always knew it would be: asked if there was room to dream a week ago, Nano responded succinctly: "no." The good news for Levante as they awake, is that they have 23 points – more than half way to their initial goal of survival. Besides, if you put together the second half of last season with the beginning of this season, they are Spain's third best side. This is more than just a fleeting fluke. What it is not, though, is a challenge.

After 10 games, Levante have won seven, drawn two and, now, lost just one. It is still not enough to lead the league. In fact, it is not even enough to take second place. And that is the point. Raimon will not just bring Levante's flag down from the first poll; when he comes to raise it again, it will go up the third. Ahead of them, Raimon will raise up the usual suspects: Real Madrid and Barcelona. It was not just that Levante were the unlikeliest of leaders that made them attractive but the fact that they were not Madrid or Barcelona. The rest of Spain needed a team to break up the behemoths. It needed a little joy, something unexpected. Something completely different. Something else. Someone else.

Yet on the other side of the divide, Levante were celebrated too. Madrid and Barcelona could feel safe in lauding them precisely because they knew that they would not stay there. They could be indulged for a bit, just so long as they didn't get ideas above their station and there was little chance of that. Levante were the little kid whose hair they could patronisingly ruffle: Very good. Now, budge. The attitude would have been different if it had been Valencia out on top – not just because it would have lacked the romance but because it might have posed a threat. Besides, when it came the deeper issues, Levante's success was helpful: a stick with which to beat Sevilla's president, José María del Nido, the man leading a revolution against inequality in the league and the dominance by the big two. See, they said, this proves that it's not all about Madrid and Barcelona; there's no need for a redistribution of wealth.

It proved nothing of the sort. Madrid and Barcelona have both had wobbles; both have been confronted with the only thing in Spain even more ridiculous, overblown and abused by the media than the Duchess of Alba's face: the word 'crisis'. And yet, 10 games into the season, they stand first and second again, a solitary defeat between them in 20 games, 32 goals each – at least 15 more than anyone else in the division. They have the best defences too. It was always going to happen but you clung to the hope of delaying the inevitable. When Levante lost, you could almost hear the correspondents packing up and leaving Levante behind, never to go back; TVs being switched off with a shrug. That's that, then.

As the final whistle went at the Reyno de Navarra, you could have been forgiven for shedding a tear - not just for Levante but for La Liga too. Everything is back to normal this morning. And it's nowhere near as fun.

Results: Valencia 3–1 Getafe, Villarreal 2–0 Rayo, Barcelona 5–0 Mallorca [5-0 is now the most common scoreline at Camp Nou under Pep Guardiola. Messi is on 13 goals this season], Real Sociedad 0–1 Real Madrid [that's 10 now for Higuaín], Sporting 1–1 Athletic, Osasuna 2–0 Levante, Racing 1–0 Betis, Atlético 3–1 Zaragoza [Good grief, Zaragoza are bad], Málaga 2–1 Espanyol. Tonight: Sevilla-Granada.

• Atlético Madrid's fans were not just chanting for Gregorio Manzano to go, they were also chanting for Luis Aragonés to come. Worse, much worse, was that at the south end of the stadium, they also launched into a chant of "[Real Madrid full-back] Marcelo, you're a monkey".

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/bbMGa

akhirnya Levante mengalami kekalahan pertamanya, 'kembali ke bumi'. tp ini merupakan hasil yg membanggakan bagi tim kecil sekelas Levante sampai saat ini. target mereka cuma lolos degradasi, syukur2 bisa lolos ke Eropa

[zudomiriku]

Cristiano Ronaldo vs. Lionel Messi: Who's Been Better so Far This Season?



While Spain's La Liga remains in the shadow of the English Premier League as Europe's dominant footballing attraction, Spain does possess two of the best footballers in the world today.

Dissecting Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's contribution to their respective sides so far this season comes down to their performances in the goals department. After all, that is at the top of their to-do list as Barcelona's and Real Madrid's principal forwards.

Delving a little further into the performances of each player suggests that there is a significant improvement, or progression, to their individual game. No longer should we look to these players simply as goal machines but rather as far more complex footballers who can deliver on so many different levels.

Cristiano Ronaldo, first and foremost, has been a wonderful revelation this season.

The Portuguese forward has developed his game far beyond the ego-driven, showboating, yet, wholly-entertaining figure that arrived in Spain from English shores. What we have now is a far more well-rounded team player.

Ronaldo has thus far picked up five league assists to complement his 10 league goals. But rather than being the player who spearheads an attack, Ronaldo has seemingly linked arms with the rest of the Madrid offense and formed a very successful hammer blow to opposition defences.

His pass to set up Karim Benzema's goal earlier in the season against Getafe was not only a moment of genius but also a highlight of the technical prowess. It was a moment of brilliance that maybe a year or so ago we would not have associated with Ronaldo but rather someone like Xavi Hernandez or Andres Iniesta.

Ronaldo's performances so far this season suggest that he is very much enjoying his footballing and the supporting cast he has at his disposal.

Teammates like Gonzalo Higuain and Mesut Özil will always bring the best out of any player, but as one of Europe's finest talents and second only to Messi, it seems Ronaldo has pulled the rest of his teammates up to his level and are forming a far more lethal attack on Barcelona's title reign.

Lionel Messi, similarly, is the first player we look to on Barcelona's team sheet.

Here is another who has picked up right where he left off last year and has continued to stun opposition defences into submission and dazzle the world's football audience.

Messi, most recently, displayed one of his most outstanding performances against Czech Republic's FC Viktoria in the Champions League where he, despite not scoring, showed the world he still had a number of new tricks in his locker.

The little Argentine also managed to assist a wonderfully-crafted goal through Iniesta and continues to show that along with his phenomenal dribbling ability and composure in front of goal, he can also go toe-to-toe with the best passers in the world.

Yet with all his ability and his status as a modern footballing deity, one must ask the question: is he as integral to Barcelona as Cristiano Ronaldo is to Madrid?

It's widely accepted that Xavi is the engine inside the Barcelona machine; one that keeps the rest of the team ticking. This is a responsibility that will eventually fall to Thiago Alcantara via Cesc Fabregas.

Ronaldo brings life to the rest of the Madrid attack line. Without him or his important co-stars, Xabi Alonso and Mesut Özil, Madrid begin to lack a little of the bite that has seen them outperform Barcelona this past weekend in the league.

Though at the same time, Barcelona continue to threaten through the likes of David Villa, Iniesta, Fabregas, and, of course, the marauding Dani Alves.

Yes, it's always going to be detrimental to either side's hopes of winning if you take their most productive star player out of the equation. But while Ronaldo has been assisting and scoring to ensure his side go above their rivals, Messi is yet to score away from the Nou Camp this season.

Being a part of 62 per cent of your side's goal thus far is a great achievement and goes on to further support how vital Messi is to the success of his club. But being unable to convert away from home must surely go against you if you're looking to pip your closest rival for personal accolades.

Two footballing greats who, arguably, have yet to reach the height of their powers.

A personal battle between the two continues to rage alongside the fierce rivalry between their two elite clubs.

At this stage in the season, the upper hand will go to the man who, with a game in hand, is two points behind Barcelona in the league standings, and who has guided his team to the only 100 per cent record so far in the Champions League—Cristiano Ronaldo.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/911736-cristiano-ronaldo-vs-lionel-messi-whos-been-better-so-far-this-season

[Andi Istiabudi]

Seperti musim-musim sebelumnya, favorit juara La Liga menurut saya tetap Barcelona, hehehe ...

[zudomiriku]

The decline of the Club Star

Argentine striker Gonzalo Higuain started his first La Liga match for Real Madrid on a cold January evening in 2007 against Zaragoza. Back then he was just 19 years old and, despite his young age, huge expectations surrounded his arrival at the Bernabeu as €13 million appeared a big price tag for an unproven, virtually unknown striker.


Gonzalo Higuain has made his mark

Madrid started off strongly and, after only nine minutes, a cross from the right found Higuain in scoring position. He tried a first-time volley with his right foot, but badly squandered the chance, only half connecting the ball and the Bernabeu responded to the miss with overwhelming silence, only broken by a low murmur of disapproval that would follow the Argentinean for some seasons to come.

I was watching the match live in the broadcasting booth of a large Spanish radio network, located in the privileged position of the Madridistas' media zone. Raul, the network's play-by-play man, narrated in a strong, disappointed tone, emphasising Higuain's wrong body positioning when he hit the ball. ''That was a LEFT foot volley, muchacho'', were his final words before going to a quick commercial break. After turning his microphone off, he told the other commentator and myself: 'Verdict: He's s**te'.

Shocked at the harshness of his judgment, I offered a mild 'Come on, that was his first play', but he quickly countered: ''That's not my opinion, it's the Bernabeu's. Supporters don't have time for this. No left foot, poor body language, terrible teeth... What does he want, four years to develop and rebuild his smile?''

Almost five years later, with 88 goals scored, 183 matches played, four domestic titles and a distinctively beaming smile, Gonzalo Higuain looks indeed like an infinitely more accomplished player. Including his moment of beauty during Real Madrid's 7-1 rout of Osasuna on Sunday afternoon, he's scored 11 times in 11 matches so far this season.

However, for a decent part of these last five years, Raul was right. Most of the Bernabeu faithful took the Argentinean with more than a pinch of salt, despite his key performances in several matches that led the club to silverware, such as his impressive form in the final sequence of matches of the title-winning 2007-08 season.

To a sizeable number of Madridistas, Higuain's speed, ability to find open spaces, and scoring prowess couldn't make up for some glaring misses and technical flaws, even if these appeared like understandable points for development among the growing capabilities of any top striker in his early twenties.

Against the harsh verdict of many, the Argentinean ended up earning himself those years of growth that the Bernabeu didn't seem keen to grant him when he arrived, a quite similar case to that of team-mate Karim Benzema, although the Frenchman seems to have evolved at a faster pace.


Raul Tamudo made himself an Espanyol legend

Since the new century started, talented young players like Higuain find it increasingly difficult to earn enough chances to grow in their respective squads. More than in any other period, immediate impact has become a must for them to get recurring playing time and avoid getting sold to another team. Believe it or not, this trait is not the prerogative of the Madridistas - although they do have a long list of promising players who got burned and were then sold or loaned before being given the chance to shine elsewhere, as Sergio Canales and Pedro Leon can easily testify.

In this era of agents running the show, clubs creating investment funds, sheiks-come-sporting-directors, clubs and players splitting image rights deals, and companies investing in portfolios of players, Gonzalo Higuain belongs to an increasingly harder-to-find category of players: the Club Stars.

Leaving aside the top two teams for a second, up to less than a decade ago, one could point to one player (the hereafter called 'Club Star') in several clubs that complied with the following characteristics: a) had been developed by that same club since his early twenties; b) had become a bigger footballer with his team's successes and failures; c) had a few shots at earning caps with his international team; d) as a result, embodied the image of their respective clubs like no other signing possibly could.

With this concept I am not referring to the jugadores de club (club players) - those dependable, loyal workers who pledged themselves to fulfil their otherwise average careers with one specific club - but rather to those such as the iconic Raul Tamudo for Espanyol, Gaizka Mendieta for Valencia, Javier de Pedro for Real Sociedad, Julen Guerrero for Athletic or Francisco Narvaez 'Kiko' for Atletico de Madrid, using the 1999-00 season as an example. Teams with 'Club Stars' usually had a chance to win silverware back then, either in La Liga or the Copa del Rey, and were usually the toughest competitors for Real Madrid and Barcelona.

What used to be the rule a few years ago has now become a rarity, and this is not only a product of the uneven distribution of TV rights. Sadly enough the system, and especially its main actors, now favour impatience and quick sales over calm and development opportunities for young players. Most Primera Division clubs have now enthusiastically joined the intermediary chain that fosters a constant pilgrimage of players among teams and hardly reinforces the clubs' chances of creating a cohesive core of players.

Barcelona have obviously stuck to a different approach, with huge investment in home-grown players, no matter their nationality. One of them, a certain Lionel Messi, rescued them from an almost certain defeat on Sunday in Bilbao, earning Barcelona the draw that Phil Ball predicted last Friday. Needless to say, the Catalans are not immune to their fair share of dodgy signings, but their youth teams' philosophy significantly restricts the damage they would inflict on themselves by killing the career of promising youngsters.

It's clear that Barcelona's Club Stars' would be: Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Carles Puyol, Victor Valdes, Pedro and Lionel Messi, while Real Madrid would have Iker Casillas, Sergio Ramos and Gonzalo Higuain. But nowadays who else does?


Jesus Navas grew through the ranks at Sevilla

Obviously Athletic's Basque-only policy rewards them in this respect, as Fernando Llorente, and to a lesser extent Javier Martinez and Iker Muniain could be classified under this tag. Sevilla's Jesus Navas qualifies as well, and stretching the concept we could also include Real Sociedad's Xabi Prieto and Valencia's Pablo Hernandez [although 'stretch' could be an understatement in his case], but after those two quite generous additions it becomes difficult to identify more of these players, who used to be one of the main links between clubs and their supporters, in the current La Liga squads.

Currently at the peak of its powers of recruitment, Spanish football keeps getting recognition. Seven Spaniards figure among the 23 footballers selected for the FIFA Ballon D'Or award - Germany is a distant second, with three - while 13 of those 23 players ply their trade in La Liga. Nonetheless, the embarrassment of riches in the top two clubs continues, while the teams that used to be their rivals keep moving players on in their formative years and copy the impatient approach that only the clubs with deeper pockets can afford.

At some point, the upper middle class of Spanish football needs to get their act together and rediscover their 'Club Stars', those icons that used to lead their teams to glory in the past. Otherwise, we run the risk of repeating this exercise five years from now and we won't be able to find a single one outside the top two.

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/bbVNB

[zudomiriku]

Cristiano Ronaldo vs. Lionel Messi: Who Will Be the Top Goal Scorer This Season?



We're at a stage now where you can't talk about one without bringing up the other; Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo go hand in hand, much like their respective clubs Real Madrid and Barcelona. The race for the Pichichi, La Liga's top goal scorer, will undoubtedly fall to either No. 1 and 2 of world football. But it's the manner in which either will get there that will write headlines for the remainder of the season.

In Cristiano Ronaldo we're seeing a player fronting a much-improved Real Madrid from last year. There seems to be a lot less anger on the part of Madrid and more a desire to play the football they know best: counter-attacking in its finest form. Much like their counterparts in Catalonia, it's a brand of football that no other team can perform as well as they do.

The rotation of the front-line has been impressive and consistent. Ronaldo, the ever-present, links up well with any of the strikers on offer at the Bernabeu and continues his almost unrivalled scoring form.

But with all the praise the can be on offer for last season's Golden Shoe winner, the questions and comparisons can never end when the greater prize remains in the hands of Lionel Messi.

Both men have recently hit milestones for their clubs with Ronaldo reaching his 100th goal for Madrid and Messi scoring his 200th for Barcelona. It's almost humorous the way both hit these goal-scoring records at the same time, as if the world didn't already have enough to fuel the Messi vs. Ronaldo debate.

Ronaldo and Madrid are very much on the rise to not only remove the gap between themselves and Barcelona, they're also keen to prove that their £80 million signing can live up to and overtake the phenomenon at the Nou Camp.


This season that gap may be getting smaller and smaller.

The Barcelona attack on domestic glory is more central to Messi's individual game, using his intelligence and ability to unlock opposition defence and create space for others—a more systematic game moving their players strategically rather than the blitzkrieg-like counter-attacking of Madrid.

Does this always come to fruition? No, as we've seen against Sevilla. The greatest team of the modern age simply ran out of ideas and could find no way past Javi Varas. Similarly, Messi, who does hold one more goal this season over Ronaldo, recently went three games without scoring. Of course, he went on to score a hat trick in the fourth game, but that's where the problems arise.

If he's not doing it for Barcelona, then who will?

Madrid don't seem to have that problem. It's a burden of responsibility that does not weigh as heavily on Ronaldo and will perhaps favour him over the course of the season. With two of the finest strikers in world football alongside him and Xabi Alonso pulling the strings in midfield, Ronaldo can feel at ease knowing the goals will come.

Does this favour the Portuguese and allow him greater chance of becoming the top scorer in La Liga? Perhaps if he weren't going head to head with Lionel Messi.

But the difficulties will soon come to the fore for Messi, who so far this season has shown that he is human and is sometimes incapable of doing what we all expect of him.

The Pichichi and overall top goal scorer in Europe will fall to the player with the greater supporting cast—a company of talent who will ease the responsibility to be the best and allow for those at the tip of the sword to shine to their maximum.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/943674-cristiano-ronaldo-vs-lionel-messi-who-will-be-the-top-goal-scorer-this-season

[zudomiriku]

Spain plays video games after Real Madrid win a thriller at Valencia

The frenetic and controversial climax to Real Madrid's 3-2 win at Valencia led to a familiar war of words in the press


Valencia players surround the referee during Saturday's match against Real Madrid.
Photograph: Heino Kalis/Reuters

It all happened so fast you weren't sure if it had happened at all. Not then, not an hour later, not the morning after, not two days on and not that it stopped them. "You can see it clearly on the television," said Gonzalo Higuaín, but you couldn't. For some time, you couldn't see it on television at all, let alone clearly. The only thing you could be sure of was that you weren't sure at all. And yet they'd never been so sure of anything in their lives. So it was that what started as a soldier against mercenaries inevitably ended in an ugly war. And the trenches were dug in familiar territory.

Confused? You're not the only one. So, let's set the scene. It's the biggest game of the season so far. Saturday night: third versus first. Real Madrid travel to Valencia, where the Chés have come to hate the team from the capital – hostile bids, confrontations, controversy and competition, plus a little politics, turning this into the rivalry Mestalla feels most. Real Madrid have won 10 games in a row, scoring 39 league goals in only 11 games, but the fixture list has been kind. Here at last is a proper test: the first game where they may not be favourites, theoretically the hardest trip after the Camp Nou. It's one of those games – and there are fewer and fewer of them – where you can't help getting a little giddy. Genuinely excited.

On the morning of the game, the Valencian newspaper Super Deporte leads with a photograph of Cristiano Ronaldo and Roberto Soldado – whose name conveniently translates as Robert Soldier. The headline shouts: "Soldiers against mercenaries." Because Soldado doesn't get paid and mercenaries aren't soldiers. On Super Deporte's website, a target is placed on Ronaldo's head. El País calls it "legends against giants" and the club encourages fans to carry the seynera – the flag of the Valencian community. Meanwhile, Unai Emery, whose team had Barcelona on the ropes and drew 2-2 with them at Mestalla, is trying to come up with another strategy; so too is José Mourinho.

A swiftly taken free-kick (too quick for the cameras) and a smooth strike from Karim Benzema give Madrid a lead. At half-time, Madrid are comfortable. In the second half, not for the first time, they slip: less intense, less aggressive, less advanced. But Sergio Ramos scores a header with 19 minutes to go and it's all over. Only it's not: it is instead the first of four goals in11 minutes. Soldado makes it 2-1. Valencia are getting on top – Madrid's possession slips to 34% in the second half, their shots dry up – and the game gets edgy. Ten players get yellow cards – and Pepe and Lassana Diarra aren't among them. Mourinho and Jordi Alba are gesturing and shouting at each other. The defender, Mourinho seems to say, is a "clown".

Soldado's goal gives hope but it is torn away three minutes later. A Valencia corner, a big hoof, goalkeeper Diego Alves dashes out to head it away but misses it, Ronaldo goes past him and scores from a tight angle. 3-1. Mourinho sprints down the touchline and leaps on to the back of substitute José María Callejón. "The winning horse," declares Marca the next day, but the horse still has to make it to the finishing post and there are more goals to come and hope is restored. Soldado gets another. 2-3. And there are eight minutes left, plus stoppage time.

Then it happens. The last attack arrives just as the clock prepares to strikes midnight. A Tino Costa free-kick on the left, practically a corner. Time for a Hail Mary. Alves is up there, hoping that he won't miss the header this time. Artiz Aduriz leaps, Higuaín gets in front of him, between them they make contact and tumble to the floor. Iker Casillas flies fast, unbelievably fast, the ball smashes against the bar – if the goalkeeper has saved it, which at first it looks like he has, it's an astonishing save. It drops to Soldado, who nudges it goalwards. There's a crowd. Higuaín, on the turf, a few yards out, shifts to his right, and blocks it. It's one of those moments when the commentary consists largely of eh, ee, ooh, ah, wow, erm … and now Valencia's players are surrounding the referee! They are too, screeching at Teixeira Vitienes II – yes, there is a Teixeira Vitienes I – to give a penalty. Instead, he gives a corner.

"I'm sorry," says Higuaín afterwards, "but it hit me in the chest. I stopped it with my ribs and when it hits your ribs it is not handball, is it?"

No. But then he would say that. And some doubt that it did hit his ribs. At home, everyone is waiting for the replay. When it comes, it seems to show that Casillas may not have saved it. It also seems to show the ball hitting Higuaín in the chest. Sport calls it a "Robbery at Mestalla", El Mundo Deportivo talks of "favours to Madrid". The following morning, the Madrid papers barely mention it, preferring to focus on what it means for the title race. "It's games like these that win you leagues," Marca says; AS leads on "that's how you win leagues". Casillas calls it the kind of match "you look back on as significant". They have a point, too. Madrid now have 11 wins in a row and there is a solidity, intensity, variety and voracity about them that makes them look increasingly like favourites for the title.

As the papers are sent, another camera angle appears – this time from La Sexta's pitch-side ENG (Electronic News Gathering) cameraman, whose footage doesn't automatically get fed into the coverage of the game itself. And this time, from this angle, it looks like a clear handball. This time, it looks like a deliberate handball – like Higuaín reached out and slapped the ball wide. Valencia's director of communications, Damiá Vidagany, is furious: "huge penalty", he says on Twitter, "but it's not Ovrebo or Stark". He's talking robbery and conspiracy. "Higuaín lies, Casillas lies, La Sexta lies," he tweets. La Sexta is the channel that showed the game live in Spain. Vidagany tells Cope radio that La Sexta has refused to hand over the image that shows the clear handball and rails against the "disgraceful" coverage and the lack of objectivity of its commentators.

But Mediapro, the company that distributes the footage and handles the Sexta's coverage, does hand it over as normal. Valencia's website uses the footage to show that it was a penalty; so, on Monday morning, does the cover of Super Deporte. For some it is too late, but the new angle suggests that the penalty is clear. The trouble is that soon another, less clear angle emerges which again seems to suggest that it is Higuaín's chest that stops the ball, not his hand. The images are pored over, again and again. On election night – and one Catalan sports newspaper greets the results by declaring that the arrival in power of Mariano Rajoy means more help for Madrid – they're taking sides. On all channels. Politics and sport. Sometimes, both at once.

Those sides are familiar sides. And all the while, standing in the middle is a referee taking the flak – because of course it's his fault that a load of snarling players made the game ugly and he could not see a penalty without any replays that others could not see with them. Some things came very sharply into focus this weekend; the penalty was not one of them – even if they said it did.

And, boy, did they. Sport's cartoon shows a hand dropping a voting slip in the polling booth. "Of course," runs the caption, "in Madrid they reckon he put the vote in with his chest." A poll in AS shows that 58% think it is not a penalty; a poll on Super Deporte says 76% think it is. Their cover leads on the exhibits A, B, and C: photos as evidence. "Indignant!" says the cover. Sports screams "IT WAS A PENALTY!", El Mundo Deportivo calls it a "PENALTI CLARÍSIMO!", with one columnist noting that the referee "closed his eyes so as not to see what he did not want to see".

Oh calm down dear, responds AS, the paper that showed such admirable calm and restraint in reinventing the rules and inventing the ludicrous Villarato theory, which claimed that there is a refereeing conspiracy to aid Barcelona. Its editor started his column with a simple judgement that brokers no argument. "Stop making such an fuss: there was no handball," he says. Despite seeing the additional footage now, the paper's former referee was adamant that it was not a penalty. Just as adamant as the Barcelona and Valencia dailies' experts were that it was. And as for Marca's refereeing expert, a linesman famous for getting it wrong, he says "clearly there wasn't a penalty".

Cearly.

Disclosure: La Sexta is the channel this column works with (but was not commentating on Saturday).

Talking points

• Granada's game should have been wonderful. Last week, Carlos Martins learnt that his little son is seriously ill and needs a bone marrow transplant. His team-mates, both club and country, have rallied round him, donation points were set up round the ground, team-mates have promised to donate, and there were banners in support. And then he only went and scored a beauty to give his struggling side a 2-1 lead. When he celebrated the goal gripping the T-shirt his team-mates had worn in his support, he began to cry and there was a colossal ovation. It was the perfect night; a genuinely touching moment. And then someone threw an umbrella from the stands which hit the assistant referee in the face, drawing blood. Two minutes after Martins' moment, the game was abandoned.

Afterwards, the Granada president Quique Pena was busy trying to deny any blame, noting that the person who threw the umbrella was not a season ticket holder, had been picked up by police, and was armed with an umbrella – on a night when it was raining. Fair enough, you may think, even if it did lack a little grace in its urgency to protest the club's innocence. What was a little less fair enough was his insistence on repeatedly noting that the person who did it was Moroccan, like that makes all the difference.

• Athletic Bilbao beat Sevilla this weekend to make it 11 games unbeaten and also to make a little piece of history: Joan Ramalho became the first black player ever to turn out for the club.

• José Antonio Reyes played a key role for Atlético Madrid and ended up with the fans chanting his name. "That makes me the happiest man in the world," he said. But he shouldn't get too used to it – doing so was largely a way of slagging off the coach Gregorio Manzano and it's not so long ago that Atlético fans' preferred chant was "Reyes, die now!"

• Barcelona's home aggregate score is now 30-0.

Results: Villarreal 1-0 Betis, Barcelona 4-0 Zaragoza, Valencia 2-3 Real Madrid, Real Sociedad 0-0 Espanyol, Sporting 2-1 Getafe, Osasuna 0-0 Rayo, Sevilla 1-2 Athletic, Atlético 3-2 Levante, Granada-Mallorca 2-1, but abandoned after 60 minutes.

Monday night: Racing-Malaga.

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/bc8jA

[zudomiriku]

Granada Vs Mallorca Suspended after Linesman Gets Hit By Umbrella

Crazy stuff. Apparently La Liga officials are currently considering what action to take after the Granada v Mallorca match has to be suspended.

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/bc8jF

[zudomiriku]

Real Madrid fans’ massive derby gambler tifo display



With all the news of fans setting things on fire over the weekend, we somehow overlooked an example of fans doing something awesome. Before Saturday's Madrid derby, Real supporters unfurled a giant tifo display depicting a cigar-smoking gambler sitting at a roulette table and flanked by two lady friends with a caption reading "all on white."

The image was reminiscent of the artwork for Grand Theft Auto III (and Vice City/San Andreas for that matter). It proved to be a good bet too, since Real beat Atletico 4-1.

Here's a video that gives a slightly better impression of just how humongous this tifo was...

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/bca2d

[zudomiriku]

Sevilla fans paying to have tiny photo of themselves on players’ shirts



Always looking for a new way to squeeze money out of their most loyal supporters, football clubs have found a new racket that could soon become common practice -- letting fans pay to have a tiny picture of themselves worn by the player of their choice.

Taking a cue from the Million Dollar Homepage, Sevilla has become the first top-flight football club to sell small squares within each player's number on the back of their shirts featuring a photo of the buyer for €24.90 ($33.35) each.

The idea of a company called Playing 2, Sevilla fans (or anyone else) can go to its website, select the player they want to wear their mug and the exact spot on the number they want to appear for the entire season.

As mentioned, Sevilla are the first team to utilize this money-making scheme and will soon be joined by fellow Spaniards Granada, with the Welsh Rugby Union team set to hand a UK debut to Playing 2 during the Six Nations.

Despite being only a 2 x 2mm picture (yes, that's right, millimetres) Sevilla have reported a positive reaction from fans, commenting "People do seem willing to pay for the chance to be on the back of their idol,"

Clubs will welcome that positive fan reaction, too — as Playing 2 offers a seriously lucrative source of revenue; with 3,142 photos capable of being crammed into a single number, each digit on a player's jersey is potentially worth over 75,000 Euros.

That won't exactly fund the next €50 million transfer, but if your club is in financial trouble, it could help.

As long as fans are willing to pay for this, it seems like a no-brainer for pretty much every club in the world to jump on board. There just better be someone checking these pictures before they get printed onto the players' shirts so no one sneaks a full moon or a rival club's crest on there. Then again, at 2x2mm, no one would notice anyway...



That 14 could be filled with butts.

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/bcb4l