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LFP: Villareal miss chance to close gap after drawing

Third-placed Villarreal threw away the chance to close the gap on second-placed Barcelona in La Liga when they were held to a 0-0 draw by struggling Osasuna on Sunday.

Villarreal's Diego Lopez and his Osasuna namesake Ricardo Lopez, the two teams' goalkeepers, were the stars of the show and successfully stopped anything that came their way.

Splitting the points with the Pamplona-based side means that Villarreal now have 46 points from 26 matches, with 12 games still to play, but they are eight points adrift of Barcelona.

The first two in La Liga get automatic places into the lucrative Champions League group stage next season.

Racing Santander are another team with European ambitions and are bidding to make their continental debut next year.

They left it late to get a 1-0 victory at Valladolid but Aldo Duscher's goal three minutes before the whistle, from just inside the area after a pass from Oscar Serrano, moved them up to sixth.

Brazilian striker Edu took his tally to seven headed goals in his last seven games as he helped Real Betis to a 4-0 win over Murcia.

The victory helped Real Betis, who two seasons ago were in the Champions League, to put further daylight between themselves and the relegation zone where they spent much of the first half of the season.

Murcia defender Cesar Arzo put the ball in his own net after 14 minutes and Edu proved again that he might be the best man in the air in a major European league when he scored in typical fashion three minutes before half-time.

Mariano Pavone's close-range goal after 57 minutes effectively extended Betis's lead before Arzo's day went from bad to worse after he brought down Pavone and Rafael Sobis scored from the resulting penalty 16 minutes from time.

Unlike Betis, Levante are still in relegation trouble but the bottom club gave their beleaguered fans something to cheer about when they beat Real Zaragoza 2-1.

Alexandre Geijo opened the scoring after 21 minutes and Mustapha Riga took advantage of a howling error by former Real Madrid defender Paco Pavon to put the Valencia-based side two ahead on the hour.

Oscar Gonzalez got one back for Zaragoza five minutes later but it was not enough as they slumped to their fourth successive defeat and they are now only one place above the relegation zone.

Real Madrid carved out a scrappy 3-2 win at Recreativo Huelva on Saturday to open up a five-point lead at the top as Barcelona crashed to a 4-2 defeat at Atletico Madrid.

In a wildly fluctuating game, Real were stunned when Recreativo defender Martin Caceres gave the hosts a dream start after 16 minutes.

Real equalized after 27 minutes from a header by Raul Gonzalez, the Real captain's 12th goal in his re-vitalized season.

Three men were then sent off in the space of 14 minutes in the second half, to reduce Recreativo to nine men and Real to ten, before second half substitute Robinho put the reigning Spanish champions ahead after 72 minutes.

The Brazilian added another a minute before the whistle before Carlos Martins got Recreativo's second goal two minutes into injury time.
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