Barcelona’s advantage over Real Madrid at the top of La Liga was cut to five points when they surrendered the lead and were held to a 1-1 draw in a thrilling clash against battling Sevilla on Sunday.
Pep Guardiola’s side looked to be cruising after substitute Bojan Krkic, who replaced the injured Pedro, put Barca ahead in the 30th minute at the Sanchez Pizjuan.
However, after Alvaro Negredo held off two defenders and crossed for Jesus Navas to head in the equalizer four minutes after halftime, the match burst into life, with both sides coming desperately close to snatching a winner.
Barca’s Andres Iniesta crashed a shot off the crossbar with just under five minutes left and had a shot cleared off the line in stoppage time after Victor Valdes had saved brilliantly from Navas.
Lionel Messi also had a header clang off the crossbar in the first half.
Real continued their perfect home record on Saturday when Karim Benzema netted twice in a 2-0 home win over Hercules.
“We still have the upper hand,” Barca midfielder Sergio Busquets said in a television interview. “We controlled the match well apart from the first 15 minutes of the second half.”
Villarreal missed a chance to trim the gap to third-placed Valencia to one point when they conceded a late penalty to gift nine-man Sporting Gijon a 1-1 draw earlier on Sunday.
Giuseppe Rossi had put Villarreal ahead in the 29th minute at the Madrigal when he reacted quicker than his marker to sweep a loose ball in off the post.
Villarreal were closing in on victroy when Gijon defender Jose Angel Valdes earned a second yellow card with 25 minutes remaining and Rafael Sastre was shown a straight red for bringing down Rossi in the 90th.
However, when David Barral went down in the penalty area in added time the referee pointed to the spot and Diego Castro scored with an audacious chip into the center of the goal.
Villarreal have 51 points from 28 matches, three behind Valencia, who held on to Spain’s third automatic Champions League qualification berth despite crashing to a 4-0 defeat at Real Zaragoza on Saturday.
In other matches on Sunday, Espanyol ended a run of six defeats in their last seven matches when they beat Deportivo La Coruna 2-0 to climb above Athletic Bilbao into fifth on 43 points.
Malaga secured only their seventh win of the campaign when they won 2-0 at Real Sociedad, while Osasuna beat Racing Santander 3-1.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB