Real Riddden rock solid

KdjaCL

Winning vs Racing with a jammy goal, racing back in it after they got 2 dodgy penos.

2-1 in 90th minutes.

Was a good game racing kept going at Real for the entire game and got their rewards altho a bit dubious. Reall would have went top of the league had they won.


La Liga is great


kdjac

Bateman

Small amount of money on betfair matched at 43/1 for Racing when they were 1 down. :eek: I was on over 2.5 goals but layed off after the first peno. It's tempting now to say that Madrid's title push is well and truly finished, but with the amount of upsets last weekend, you just can't tell; Mallorca might do them a favour against Barcelona, as might Sevilla's opposition. Having said that, I expect at least either one of Barcelona and/or Sevilla to win tomorrow.

Next up Betis-Sociedad in the mother of all relegation six pointers. I can see goals here.

KdjaCL

Sevilla away to Valencia who have only the league to play for now, so woould expect Valencia to win that. Cant see Mallorca winning morrow.

Socidad have to win to have any hopes of staying up. If atletico win morrow they can make a late charge for CL and tbh the league, crazy season this year.

Woudlnt bet on anything in that league its too unpredictable.


kdjac

Bateman

Betis playing their home games in Sevilla's Olympic stadium, I forgot their stadium was closed over the hassle in the cup derby game. A big pitch, and two poor teams; mark my words and thank me later, corners is the bet here.

To be honest I think Mallorca could sneak a draw tomorrow. Barcelona have sunk into an awful state of galactico-ism this season, with Eto'o seemingly deciding that he didn't want to play away to Zaragoza last week, as he didn't feel like it. Rijkaard doesn't seem to have much control over the team, himself and Ronaldinho are unlikely to stay beyond the end of this season, and Mallorca will park the bus.

Zebra3

La Liga.

The league no-one wants to win? :eek:

Bateman

Looks that way alright.

KdjaCL

Half time in Barca game, hasnt started on sky yet

0-0

kdjac

kinaldo

Is La Liga rigged in favour of Barca or something?

Sevilla denied top spot last week after two perfectly good goals get disallowed.

Then two outrageous late penalties and red cards to deny Madrid top spot on Saturday night.

They say Barca are the team of the state these days, don't they? Typically they win with a 90th minute og after Mallorca had earlier missed a penalty.

With Sevilla losing to Valencia they all need a miracle to topple Barca now.

Dont be at yourself

Valencia taking crucial points off Sevilla there. Results are going Barca' way at the moment, but with 3 teams snapping at their heels, the pressure is immense.

What are the run-ins like for top 4?

[edit]Here:

Barcelona:
Villarreal
Levante U.D
Real Sociedad
Real Betis Balompié
Atlético de Madrid
Getafe C.F
Espanyol
Nástic Tarragona

Sevilla:
Athletic Club
Espanyol
Real Madrid
Recreativo de Huelva
Deportivo de la Coruña
Zaragoza
Mallorca
Villarreal

Real Madrid:
Valencia
Athletic Club
Sevilla
Espanyol
Recreativo de Huelva
Deportivo de la Coruña
Zaragoza
Mallorca

Valencia:
Real Madrid
Recreativo de Huelva
Deportivo de la Coruña
Zaragoza
Mallorca
Villarreal
Levante U.D
Real Sociedad

Barca look to have an easy enough finish, Real have to play Valencia, Sevilla and Zaragoza, and it's hard to imagine they'll take 9 from those three. Valencia - Real will be crucial for Valencia's hopes.

I really, really hope that Sevilla (or Valencia, at a stretch) can take it this year.

zAbbo

Was at the Barce game against Mallorca, Nothing happened until Xavi and Savilola came on, Maollorca came for a point, and possibly should have won.

KdjaCL

Still loads of points to be dropped, once Sevilla and Atletico get into CL i would be happy.

Gap from 6th to 1st is 9 points next week i reckon it be 6 with 6 games to play.

http://www.eurosport.com/football/la-liga/2006-2007/

Fixtures but no run as such as nearly 6 teams can win.


kdjac

Dont be at yourself

I think it's a bit too much to ask of Zaragoza or Atletico to overhaul the top four, but I guess with the amount of points being dropped since Christmas by practically everyone, it is possible!

leninbenjamin

NekkidBibleMan wrote:

Real Madrid:
Valencia
Athletic Club
Sevilla
Espanyol
Recreativo de Huelva
Deportivo de la Coruña
Zaragoza
Real Madrid

real madrid play themselves? that'd make for an interesting match.

Dont be at yourself

Quiet, you.

Bateman

Wouldn't mind seeing the run-in with homes in bold, if someone has the time to oblige. Valencia are a big, big price; a lot hinges on the outside chance they might beat Madrid at the Bernebeau; it's unlikely, but not impossible.

kinaldo

I was eagerly awaiting to hear what Phil Ball had to say on the corruption theories after recent strange happenings in La Liga, and here it is, my constant voice of reason in footballing moments of doubt:

There are other matters in Spain, however, that could do with a medical check-up. One of them is the eternal conspiracy theory about referees.

Last weekend, Valencia decided to only field two of the players who had played at Chelsea, resting the squad for the second leg. The game was at Athletic Bilbao - this season's poorest home side. Bilbao won the game, much to the chagrin of the other sides who are involved in the relegation struggle (another increasingly annoying consequence of the overbearing importance of the Champions League) in what looked at first to be a game that Valencia were almost throwing, as if they were more confident of knocking out Chelsea and continuing in Europe than they were of still challenging Barcelona for the Spanish title.

But this ignores the fact that the referee, Mejuto Gonzalez, seemed to favour the struggling home side, awarding them a largesse of free-kicks and ignoring two clear penalty appeals for fouls on Valencia's winger David Silva. Even this would have passed unnoticed had the referee not been recorded by the TV cameras in the tunnel before the game, chatting to Bilbao's Joseba Exteberría.

'So you lost last week eh?' opens Mejuto, conversationally.

'Yeah - again!' says Exteberría.

'You've got a tricky run-in eh? ' says Mejuto (as if he's studied it). Etxeberría nods. 'Don't worry' says Mejuto soothingly. 'You'll stay up'.

Now imagine if Mourinho had heard this. Quique Sánchez Flores of course hadn't, until well after the match, but even before he had the insults were flying - the Valencia manager accusing the referee of blatantly favouring Bilbao, of deliberately messing up Valencia's title challenge and of never doing Valencia any favours (although the statistics don't confirm this).

Mejuto is an Asturian, and therefore the usual conspiracies about regional favouritism do not apply here in any significant sense, but of course, the whole issue has blown up in Angel María Villar's face - President of the FEF (Spanish Football Federation) for the past 19 years and born and bred in Bilbao. He even played for them, and for Spain (22 times), but has never been exactly a trusted figure. His own unfortunate confession to journalists only last week that he also thought that Bilbao would stay up has only made matters worse.

Not that the rest of Spain is clamouring for Athletic's relegation. Far from it. They have never been out of the top flight, a remarkable record that is worth the preserving. But as Head of the Referees Commission too, Villar should really be more discreet, and should surely have stepped in to tick off Mejuto for his own indiscretion - innocent though it probably was. In a country where everyone is assumed corrupt until proved otherwise, largely because people see this as a perfectly normal state of affairs, football is the only area where a whiff of skulduggery will bring out the moral majority.

The inevitable domino effect has been incurred. On Saturday night, Madrid's Director of Football, Predrag Mijatovic, used the classic phrase 'Estan pasando cosas raras' (Strange things are happening), a sentence always wheeled out when the speaker wishes to imply conspiracy, without saying anything that could otherwise end him up in court. Turienzo Alavarés had just awarded Racing de Santander two penalties and sent off two Real Madrid players, condemning them to a 2-1 defeat in fortress Santander and robbing them of a deserved victory - for a change.

They actually played quite well, and the first penalty was certainly a mistake. The second, where Cannavaro bear hugged the mighty Zigic, looked more like the real thing, but Madrid were incandescent with rage, finally finding an excuse to justify their inability to catch Barcelona and hiding the fact that Capello once again played it too conservatively, failing to really go for the throat and get the second goal that would have killed the game off. But hey, Zapatero's the Prime Minister, and he's a Barça fan. Matter closed, obviously.

It's not all over yet, but with Sevilla losing at Valencia, Barcelona just seem to stay up there, despite all the rumours of back-biting and an alleged player diaspora this coming summer. That doesn't reflect too well on La Liga, I have to admit.

full article

KdjaCL

Thats arse tbh, madrid were played off the park by the form team in the league. They played well in the 1st half but in the second they invited racing on and that lad Zigic is nearly 9 foot , 1st peno was dubious but second wasnt.



kdjac