Barcelona maintain 100 per cent start in Spanish La Liga
Madrid, Oct 2 (IANS) FC Barcelona continued their 100 percent start to the season ahead of the forthcoming international break in surreal fashion as they defeated Las Palmas 3-0 in front of an empty Camp Nou Stadium.
Barcelona’s Spanish La Liga home match against Las Palmas took place behind closed doors as clashes broke out over Catalonia’s independence referendum on Sunday, reports Xinhua news agency.
A Sergio Busquets header opened the scoring before halftime and Leo Messi scored twice more after the break to ensure Barca go into the break with 21 points from 7 games.
Valencia moved into third after a 3-2 win at home to Athletic Club Bilbao thanks to goals from Simone Zaza, Dani Parejo and Rodrigo Moreno, while Aritz Aduriz, with his 150th league goal and Raul Garcia scored for the visitors, who probably deserved a point for their efforts.
Real Madrid returned to winning ways at home with a 2-0 win at home to Espanyol with two goals from Isco. It was Real Madrid’s first home win of the campaign against a rival who have not won in the ground since 1996 and their 100th victory against Espanyol.
Javier Callejo got off to a winning start as Villarreal coach as his side enjoyed an easy 3-0 over Eibar thanks to a hat-trick from striker Cedric Bakambu.
Sunday kicked off with an incredible 4-4 draw between Real Sociedad and Betis in a game where the home side came back from behind 3 times to take a point in 90 minutes packed with defensive errors.
Antonio Sanabria opened the scoring for Betis only for the home side to respond with goals from Willian Jose and Mikel Oyarzabal, and Zou Feddal equalized before the break.
The second half kicked off with Joaquin Sanchez putting Betis back in front only for Xavi Prieto to again level the scores. Sergio Leon made it 3-4 in the 84th minute but Diego Llorente’s header with two minutes remaining saw a share of the points.
On Saturday Sevilla returned to second place following a 2-0 win at home to Malaga, whose coach Michel Gonzalez’s job hangs by a thread as his side remain with just one point from seven games.
Malaga performed well in the first half, but were undone when the referee gave a penalty for a supposed foul on Joaquin Correa in the and Ever Banega fired home.
Luis Muriel added a second after 70 minutes to seal the win, which saw Sevilla leapfrog Atletico Madrid after Diego Simeone’s men were held to a 0-0 draw by Leganes.
Atletico kicked off with three central defenders, but failed to create enough chances in the Madrid derby and had it not been for another fine performance from Jan Oblak, their neighbors would have taken more than just a point.
Deportivo la Coruna coach Pepe Mel looks to have saved his job for the short term at least after they fought back from a goal down to beat Getafe 2-1.
Amath N’Diaye opened the scoring for the visitors in the 54th minute of their game, but Lucas Perez in the 66th minute with his first goal since returning from Arsenal and, and Florin Andone, who netted four minutes from time, gave Deportivo their second win of the season.
Alaves coach Gianni Di Biassi made his debut for the Basque side who produced a defensive display to win 2-0 away to Levante.
A first half goal from Munir on 33 minutes opened the scoring and Alvaro Medran netted a header with 10 minutes left to give Alaves their first points of the campaign.