Barcelona’s perfect start to the Spanish League season ended on Saturday when the champions were held to a 0-0 draw at Valencia.
A seventh successive win would have been Barcelona’s best ever beginning to a league campaign, but Pep Guardiola’s side had to settle for a draw against a resolute Valencia side and now sit one point above Real Madrid at the summit.
PHOTO: EPA
“We knew it would be a difficult game here and it was,” Barcelona’s Dani Alves said. “There are a lot of teams that are going to compete for this title and it will be a long fight.”
Earlier captain Raul celebrated breaking the club’s all-time appearance record with a brace as Real Madrid bounced back from their Sevilla defeat with a 4-2 home win over Valladolid.
“It was a good victory and a much-needed one,” Raul said. “Games like this after the international fixtures can be dangerous but we won and that is all that counts.”
Xavi shrugged off a knock to start for Barcelona but Thierry Henry missed out through injury and Zlatan Ibrahimovic began on the substitutes bench.
Lionel Messi was up front but looked to be suffering from fatigue after hours of traveling for Argentina’s vital World Cup qualifiers.
Valencia coach Unai Emery chose not to risk flaring up David Villa’s injury relying on the counter-attacking pace of Juan Mata and Pablo Hernandez.
A stray pass allowed Valencia to spring a lightning counter-attack after just two minutes but Hernandez could not beat Victor Valdes in the Barcelona goal.
Guardiola resisted the temptation to make any changes at half-time and his team raised the standard in the second half.
Pedro Rodriguez had the best chance close to the hour mark but could not squeeze his shot past the goalkeeper.
Hernandez almost scored a sensational long-range goal from his own half only for Valdes to tip it over the crossbar.
Real did not have such problems in front of goal with Raul overtaking the record of Manolo Sanchis with his 711th appearance in the white shirt and scoring twice inside five first half minutes (13 minutes and 18 minutes) as Real made hard work of overcoming Valladolid.
Brazilian Marcelo and substitute Gonzalo Higuain were also on target to fend off a brave Valladolid as Real won to boost confidence for tomorrow’s Champions League home match against AC Milan.
With 13 minutes gone Raul neatly flicked in with his heel for the opener and five minutes later he arrived on cue to side-foot home a Marcelo pass.
The game looked wrapped-up but Nauzet German curled an unstoppable free-kick past Iker Casillas close to the half hour mark.
Marcelo responded with a fine individual goal smashing home with his weaker right foot with literally the final kick of the first period.
Valladolid reduced the cushion to just one goal on 53 minutes before substitute Higuain produced a sublime 79th minute chipped finish to seal the game.
Sevilla’s joy at beating Real two weeks ago was short-lived as the title hopefuls came crashing back down to earth with a 1-0 loss at Deportivo La Coruna.
Sevilla thought they had underlined their title credentials with a superb 2-1 win over Real but saw a run of five straight wins come to an end with Juan Rodriguez’s fantastic strike clinching the win for Deportivo.
“We knew that we had not won the league by beating Real Madrid and we are not going to go down because we lost here,” Sevilla coach Manolo Jimenez said.
It was sweet revenge for Deportivo who lost four times against Sevilla last season, twice in the league and twice in the King’s Cup, and La Coruna’s fourth consecutive win sees them stay fourth and level on points with Sevilla.
A fourth consecutive clean sheet kept Sevilla at bay as Deportivo made it four wins on the spin.
Sevilla now travel to Stuttgart tomorrow for their next Champions League group match having won at Rangers in their last game in the competition.
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