Messi agreed no-fee Barca exit clause in case of Catalan independence
Villarreal went top with a 1-0 win over Atletico Madrid on Saturday after a toothless Real Madrid were held 0-0 at home to 10-man Malaga and Lionel Messi suffered a serious injury as Barcelona beat Las Palmas 2-1.
Twenty-three-times Cup winners Athletic Bilbao were dumped out in sensational circumstances by tiny island side SD Formentera, who sneaked a 1-0 win at San Mames with a header by Alvaro Muniz deep in stoppage-time to reach the last 16 for the first time with a 2-1 aggregate victory.
Mediums may change, formats may alter but one thing remains constant -- audience making their likes and dislikes abundantly clear.
Striker Aduriz opened the scoring in the sixth minute at the San Mames with a trademark header before midfielder Garcia, who joined from Atletico Madrid last month, nodded in a second in the 24th minute.
Real Madrid suffered a shock 1-0 home defeat to Real Betis on Wednesday as an inspired performance from their former goalkeeper Antonio Adan and a stoppage-time winner from Antonio Sanabria stunned the Liga champions.
Breathless action is the only script 56-year-old Tom Cruise needs to work on as he jumps off from building to building with an agility and assurance that could put Spider-Man to shame.
Barcelona talisman has become just as dangerous from dead ball situations too
Pepe has blasted the Liga club's fans as "unenthusiastic", contrasting the hushed atmosphere of the Santiago Bernabeu stadium with the cauldron of noise he is now exposed to with Turkish champions Besiktas.
It was Messi's 56th converted penalty in La Liga and saw him draw level with Hugo Sanchez as the league's second-top penalty taker, behind record holder Cristiano Ronaldo on 61.
Ibrahimovic has not played since suffering a career-threatening knee ligament injury in United's Europa League quarter-final second leg match against Anderlecht at Old Trafford in April.
Barca's second-half stamina key to their massive lead in the standings this season
Atletico Madrid's faint hopes of chasing down runaway Liga leaders Barcelona suffered a fresh blow on Saturday as they were held to a 1-1 draw at home to Girona, meaning they could fall 11 points behind the Catalans by the end of the weekend.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Saturday
Setien was named Barcelona coach late on Monday, tasked with the job of restoring the club's iconic passing style, but the appointment represents a huge gamble for the Catalans given the 61-year-old's lack of success at the highest level.
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Barca must beat Villareal on the weekend if they are to stand a chance of overhauling Real in the run in.
Valencia sign Kondogbia on loan from Inter
Runaway Premier League leaders Manchester City beat champions Chelsea 1-0 at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday to extend their lead to 18 points and leave the London side further adrift from the Champions League qualification spots.
FC Goa have signed Sergio Lobera Rodriguez as the head coach on a two-year deal and he will take over the reins from the first week of July.
Gary Neville's disappointing start as Valencia coach continued when the ambitious Singapore-owned club drew 2-2 at home to lowly Rayo Vallecano in La Liga on Sunday, prompting more rumblings of discontent from the fans.
A year after hosting the football World Cup and a year before staging the Summer Olympics, Brazil is set to stage a new international event -- the Indigenous Peoples World Games.
Real Madrid's stuttering run continued as they were held 1-1 at home by La Liga minnows Eibar on Sunday, drawing a fourth consecutive game in all competitions for the first time in more than a decade.
Lionel Messi's injury is a painful blow for Barcelona but is also a motivation for the rest of the squad, midfielder Ivan Rakitic said before the holders host Bayer Leverkusen in Champions League Group E on Tuesday.
'We are going through difficult and complicated moments and with respect to what could happen in the future we will take it on with calm and wisdom'
Lionel Messi came off the bench to preserve Barcelona's unbeaten run in La Liga with a sensational late equaliser in a thrilling 2-2 draw at Sevilla on Saturday as the runaway leaders came back from two goals down in the space of a minute.
Real Madrid put their title defence back on track with a comfortable 3-1 win over Real Sociedad at Anoeta on Sunday, despite missing several key players. Sociedad defender Kevin Rodrigues scored at both ends and Borja Mayoral and Gareth Bale netted Madrid's other goals to help them equal the consecutive scoring record of 73 games set by Pele's Santos between 1961 and 1963.
Pedro hit a first-half hat-trick as Barcelona cruised into the last 16 of the King's Cup with a 8-1 second leg demolition of lower league Huesca at the Camp Nou on Tuesday.
Cristiano Ronaldo missed a penalty as Real Madrid and neighbours Atletico were held to draws leaving Barcelona with an eight-point lead at the top of La Liga and 13 matches left.
Real Madrid thrashed Deportivo La Coruna 6-2 to stay level with Barcelona at the top of La Liga on Wednesday after the Catalans crushed Osasuna 7-1, condemning the minnows to relegation.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
With a fifth world player of the year award safely tucked away in the trophy cabinet, Lionel Messi can set his sights on one of the next milestones in his remarkable career: reaching 500 goals for club and country. The Barcelona and Argentina forward can add to his jaw-dropping tally of 479 in 609 official games -- 430 for Barca and 49 for his national team -- in Sunday's La Liga match at home to Athletic Bilbao. The 28-year-old from Rosario, who picked up the FIFA Ballon d'Or on Monday, is looking close to his best following a two-month injury layoff late last year and netted a hat-trick when second-placed Barca crushed Granada 4-0 at the Nou Camp last weekend in their most recent outing in Spain's top flight.
Atletico Madrid's French forwards Antoine Griezmann and Kevin Gameiro fired them to a first win in three league outings as they beat Valencia 3-0 on Sunday to maintain their hold on Spain's fourth Champions League qualifying place.
Images from the UEFA Champions League matches played on Tuesday night.
Barcelona needed Luis Suarez to be at his clinical best with a hat-trick in a 3-1 comeback win at home to modest Eibar on Sunday which put the champions level on 21 points with arch-rivals Real Madrid at the top of La Liga.
Football news from Ligue 1, Bundesliga and La liga.
Barca, with Lionel Messi absent through injury, hit the woodwork on four occasions but luck was not on their side as they lost their second consecutive away game following their 4-1 defeat by Celta Vigo.
Barcelona moved ever closer towards a successful defence of their La Liga title after nearest challengers Atletico Madrid suffered a shock late collapse at struggling Sporting Gijon to lose 2-1 on Saturday.
zidane Image: Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane. Photograph: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images. An elated but pragmatic Zinedine Zidane has quickly turned his mind from the Champions League victory against AS Roma to Real Madrid's seemingly impossible task to catch Barcelona in La Liga. Real are getting better under Zidane, unbeaten in seven matches in all competitions after Wednesday's 2-0 win in the first leg of their last-16 tie in Rome, thanks to a brilliant Cristiano Ronaldo. But only a couple of hours earlier, Barcelona had left Real and Atletico Madrid with a tough task to overhaul them in the league race when they secured a six-point cushion with a 3-1 win at Sporting Gijon. With 14 matches to go for all the teams in La Liga, Barcelona have 60 points to Atletico's 54 and Real's 53 and are favourites to win a sixth title in eight seasons. "We are seven points behind and it will be difficult, but we are giving it everything and we are all happy," Zidane was quoted as saying on the Real website (www.realmadrid.com).
