Barcelona’s Luis Suarez, Neymar and Messi react against Valencia at Camp Nou stadium, in Barcelona April 17, 2016.
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Barcelona restated their title ambitions by thrashing Deportivo La Coruna 8-0 away from home, with Luis Suarez scoring four times and contributing three assists as they showed no mercy.
Barcelona coach Luis Enrique began his career at Sporting, which came from behind to beat Sevilla 2-1 on Wednesday and climb out of the bottom three. There was carnage in the second half as Suarez set up Ivan Rakitic soon after the break and then latched onto a pass from Messi to claim his hat-trick. Zidane’s side emerged from a hard game against Villarreal, despite the absences of both Dani Carvajal and Gareth Bale – with Karim Benzema, Lucas Vazquez and Luka Modric all on target in a 3-0 win at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Real Madrid and Atletico both have Champions League semi-finals to think about next week, but Barcelona have a free run at the league and know that four victories would see them retain the Spanish crown despite late pressure from the capital.
An own goal, however, from Grzegorz Krychowiak levelled the score before half-time and then Lopez snatched a dramatic three points for the home side with a cool finish in stoppage time at the end of the second half.
“The league has been exciting”, Alonso said. In their previous 20 league games, they had won 19.
“What we have to do is enjoy the moment playing for the best team in the world”.
“We are Real Madrid and we have the squad to fight for the two titles”, said the Croatian.
“This bad form has arrived at the worst time, just as the titles are being decided”.
“We are the leaders and we are convinced we are going to win it”.
“It is completely up to us whether we win”, Suarez said. He later added another goal to take his season’s tally to 30, clawing within one of Cristiano Ronaldo in the Pichichi standings.
Suarez has netted 49 goals in 48 matches this season, surpassing the 47 goals that former Brazil striker Ronaldo had scored in the 1996-97 season.
Atletico kept pace with Barcelona with the hard-fought win over fifth-place Athletic in Bilbao, when Torres’s header was enough to give Diego Simeone’s team its fourth straight league victory.
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Barcelona were dominant and their unbeaten 39-game run – and you can read much more about that here – made that point with as blatantly and emphatically as anything unsubtle and emphatic you care to choose: an elephant, a drunk in a midnight choir, a disco ball.
