Real Madrid thrashed arch-rivals and league leaders Barcelona 4-0 to reach the Copa del Rey final
A dominant yet wasteful Real ravaged their rivals in the first half while spurning a string of clear chances at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Lightning struck twice for Marc-Andre ter Stegen on Saturday when the Borussia Moenchengladbach goalkeeper scored a bizarre own goal in a 1-1 draw at Eintracht Braunschweig and his opposite number also put through his own net.
Barcelona's poor run away to Real Sociedad continued when the champions were held to a 1-1 draw at Anoeta on Sunday and slipped six points behind La Liga leaders Real Madrid before next week's 'Clasico' against their arch rivals.
Barcelona snapped a four-match winless run in La Liga with a 4-2 home victory over title rivals Sevilla on Saturday to reclaim top spot but the triumph was marred by talisman Lionel Messi fracturing his arm and being ruled out for three weeks.
Barcelona must appreciate matching the club's record of nine wins and a draw in their first 10 games of a Liga campaign, especially after Real Madrid's defeat at Girona, coach Ernesto Valverde told a news conference on Monday.
Real Madrid talisman Cristiano Ronaldo and Barcelona striker Luis Suarez took centre stage on Saturday in bailing their teams out with late strikes to silence their critics following slow starts to the season.
Lionel Messi scored one penalty and missed another as his double helped Barcelona sweep Levante aside in the second half in a 4-1 victory on Sunday to maintain their perfect La Liga start.
Barcelona forward Ousmane Dembele scored twice and produced a mesmerising display to fire his side to a 5-1 win over Villarreal on Wednesday which stretched the champions' unbeaten run this season to 36 games with two remaining.
Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar combined to devastating effect as Barcelona swatted Celtic aside 7-0 at the Nou Camp to lay down a marker in Champions League Group C on Tuesday.
Barcelona's Luis Suarez netted twice for a 2-1 win over 10-man Atletico Madrid in their Champions League quarter-final, first leg on Tuesday after the visitors' Fernando Torres opened the scoring and was later sent off.
The spectacular Milky Way over the picturesque Bavarian mountain, Herzogstand, the remarkable Horsehead Nebula and the Flame Nebula, a vast cloud of gas and dust where new stars are being born; the Royal Observatory's Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2019 has once more received thousands of outstanding images. The competition, which is run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich, sponsored by Insight Investment and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine, is now in its eleventh year and has broken the record number of entries once more, receiving over 4,600 entries from enthusiastic amateurs and professional photographers, taken from 90 countries across the globe. The winners will be announced on September 12, and an exhibition of the winning images from the past years of the contest will be on show at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich from September 13.
