A double from Argentine striker Gonzalo Higuain helped Real Madrid coach Manuel Pellegrini celebrate a 6-2 victory over his former team Villarreal as the winners kept up the pressure on Spanish league leaders Barcelona on Sunday.
Real — who are just two points behind Barcelona — started like a dream with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring from a brilliant freekick and dedicated it to the flood victims of his home island of Madeira, and then Brazilian star Kaka put them 2-0 to the good with a penalty.
Villarreal, though, struck back through Brazilian Nilmar before seeing Real add a third as Higuain struck for the first time, but Villarreal gamely replied through Spanish international midfielder Marcos Senna.
PHOTO: EPA
However, the visitors hopes were finally dashed with 20 minutes remaining when Higuain was on hand to tap home Marcelo’s low pass from the left side of the penalty area.
Kaka somewhat cruelly for Villarreal added a fifth near full-time and Xabi Alonso scored a penalty to give the scoreline an unbalanced look but gave Real the perfect pep-up following their 1-0 defeat by Lyon in last Tuesday’s Champions League last 16 first leg match in France.
Athletic Bilbao have a European place in their sights after a convincing 4-1 win over ten-man Tenerife.
PHOTO: EPA
The Basque side are now one point off sixth-placed Mallorca after a game in which they never looked back following a penalty taken by Fernando Llorente, after a foul by Jose Culberas on Gaizka Toquero for which he was sent-off.
Toquero scored himself from a flick-on by Llorente and then after the break Andoni Iraola added another before Alejandro Alfaro pulled a goal back. Igor Gabilondo, though, restored the three-goal advantage with just less than half an hour to go.
Malaga continued their good run which has seen them pick up ten points from a possible 12 with a 2-1 win over Espanyol.
The home side went ahead through Fernando Fernandez but Victor Ruiz drew Espanyol level before half-time and while it was they who had the better of the second half, Victor Obinna scored the vital goal to give the Andalusians victory.
Valladolid lost the chance to win three key points in their battle against relegation as a late goal from Camunas saw Osasuna draw 1-1.
In a frantic finale Haris Medunjanin put the visitors ahead but Javier Camunas gave Osasuna a share of the spoils with four minutes left. Zaragoza are now just one point above Valladolid after they lost 3-1 at home to Sporting Gijon.
Mate Bilic and Luis Moran put Sporting into a commanding lead and then in injury time there goals for either side from Angel Arizmendi and David Barral.
On Saturday leaders Barcelona put their injury concerns to one side as they cruised to a 4-0 win over Racing Santander.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier