Real Madrid won in a canter at the Bernabeu on Sunday afternoon against a struggling Granada side. In a surprisingly open first 25 minutes which saw good chances spurned by both teams, Madrid finally opened their account when Gareth Bale rounded the keeper and tapped into an empty net. What happened next unsurprisingly involved a certain Cristiano Ronaldo who fired a quick-fire hat-trick in all of 8 minutes! Four goals down at half-time, Granada could have been forgiven for deciding to head straight for the team bus to take the autovia A-4 journey home. Evidently their bus driver was nowhere to be found! Granada reappeared for the second half but within 11 minutes of the restart found themselves 7-0 behind thanks to Benzema (2) and Ronaldo with his 4th strike. However, in the 74th minute the tide did briefly turn when Ibanez confidently placed the ball past Casillas to make it 1-7, they couldn’t possibly…..could they?? Well no they couldn’t, an 89th minute own goal and a fifth goal for the shy and retiring Ronaldo made the final scoreline 9-1 to make this Real Madrid’s highest winning margin in La Liga since 1967!
The victory put Madrid just 1 point behind rivals Barcelona at the top of La Liga, and Barca were facing a tough away game at Celta Vigo in yesterday’s evening game…
With the pressure back on, Barcelona were pleased to have Messi passed fit following his recent injury scare but in a very close game in which Celta were the better side in the first half Barca snatched victory with a 74th minute header from Jeremy Mathieu from a Xavi free-kick.
The hard fought win maintains Barca’s 4 point advantage over Real with 9 games of the La Liga season remaining – another exciting finale seems sure!