Away day to forget for Real Madrid and Barcelona
Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona both had an away day to forget on Sunday, as Real could only draw 1-1 at Athletic Bilbao while Barcelona crashed 2-0 at Celta Vigo.
Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona both had an away day to forget on Sunday, as Real could only draw 1-1 at Athletic Bilbao while Barcelona crashed 2-0 at Celta Vigo.
Real Madrid's draw means that they are now five points behind the side from Real Sociedad in the race for the Spanish title, however nobody is talking about sacking their coach Vicente Del Bosque.
By contrast, the job of Barcelona coach Louis van Gaal is in jeopardy and the Catalans' eighth loss of the season could see the Dutchman out of work very soon.
Ronaldo made another repayment on his 45 million euro summer transfer fee by putting Real Madrid into the lead after 57 minutes, sending the ball into an empty net after Athletic goalkeeper Daniel Aranzubia could only turn away a Raul Gonzalez shot.
However, Real's lead only lasted 11 minutes as Asier Del Horno equalised for Athletic, after Tiko Martinez had sent a short corner from Javi Gonzalez flying into the box.
The European and world champions kept up the pressure for the remainder of the match but Aranzubia thwarted all their efforts.
"We lost two points here," admitted Ronaldo.
"It's a long road to the end of the league and we are carrying on without getting defeated. But somewhere in this match we lost a little bit of rhythmn and now we have to hope Sociedad slip up," added the Brazilian.
Real Sociedad have 43 points from their 19 matches and were proclaimed the Spanish 'winter champions' - the unofficial title given to the league leader at the halfway point in the season - after their 2-1 win at Atletico Madrid on Saturday.
The Basque team extended their unbeaten run with second half goals from Tayfun Korkut and Darko Kovacevic, the latter responding to an Atletico equaliser by Luis Garcia.
Barcelona are down in 12th place, a huge 20 points off the lead, after their latest disaster.
After an initial flourish from Barca, all the chances fell to the feet of the Galican hosts.
Jesuli Mora had the goal at his mercy but hit the post midway through the first half and then Gustavo Lopez had a weak penalty saved by Barca goalkeeper Roberto Bonano.
Jesuli made up for his earlier miss by finding the net two minutes after the break, darting forward unmarked with the Barca defence pushed too far forward to pick up a Peter Lucin cross.
Brazilian winger Sylvinho got Celta's second with a spectacular volley from an acute angle after 72 minutes, one of the best goals in the Spanish first divisqion all season.
By contrast to the Barcelona misery, the Celta victory brought joy to their own supporters whose team had lost their last three games and not even scored a goal since the start of the year.