To get straight to the important weekend news, in the run-up to next Sunday's ‘el clasico’, yes it's back again, Madrid beat Deportivo La Coruña 5-1 and Barca staged a comeback to beat Sevilla 3-2 meaning Barca retain an 8 point gap over Madrid at the top, if you wish to ignore all other contenders for the La Liga title.

Madrid got angry against a meek Deportivo side that had the gall to go ahead with a well crafted Riki goal on 15 minutes, a schoolboy error by the Galicians scoring too soon.

Madrid, and in particular Angel Di Maria were rampant, and combined with a few strokes of luck, hit back with a Ronaldo hat-trick that included 2 penalties.

With Ajax and Barcelona in the next 7 days, Madrid also had the luxury of bringing Xabi Alonso, Kaka and Karim Benzema from the bench to replace Luka Modric, Gonalo Higuain and Mesut Ozil, a talent transfer valued in the region of €200m.

In Sevilla on Saturday night, Barca’s €29m signing Cesc Fabregas continued his resurgence with quite a performance.

CESC FOR  OSCAR?

Not content with dragging his team back into a game it looked like losing with a second-half double, he also resorted to some dramatic playacting to get Gary Medel sent-off after a quick tete-a-tete, before €40m David Villa stepped off the bench to grab Barca's injury-time winner.

After beating Madrid in their last home game, Sevilla gave Barca a hell of a fright on Saturday, but there was a certain inevitability about the final outcome.

In years gone by La Liga has been lightened up by sides who punched above their weight against the big two, Sevilla and Deportivo being a couple of the main suspects along with Valencia, Real Sociedad and Villarreal, now in the second division.

If La Liga is not to be reduced to the straight knockout event of recent seasons between the two heavyweights, we have to look elsewhere for the surprise package.

Meanwhile Sevilla will continue to lead the well documented battle for Spanish clubs to receive a more equal share of TV rights that sees Madrid and Barca receive around 50% of total revenues  and facilitates their complete domination.

ANYONE ELSE CHALLENGING?

Atletico Madrid won again on Sunday, narrowley 1-0 at winless Español, to make it 5 wins from 6 and leave ‘los colchoneros’ 2 points from Barca in second position. Are they in it for the long haul?

Probably not, but coach Diego Simeone has stamped his competitive nature all over an already talented side since taking over in January and with a lot of winnable games before they meet Barca and Madrid in December, they can stay in contention for longer than they have done since their last title in 1996.

Next up for 'Atleti' is  Malaga  next Sunday who were excellent in their 4-0 derby victory over Betis for who nothing went right. Also unbeaten, Malaga are only 4 points behind Barca and seemingly unaffected by losing several key players over the summer.

Betis lost their goalkeeper Casto to an early red after a typical 'goalie scythes forward’ challenge and when Joaquin converted the resulting penalty the Costa del Sol side never looked back.

It’s difficult to see who else can compete, Valencia had a morale boosting 2-0 win over a poor Zaragoza side, but are 10 points behind Barca already and playing catch-up for the race for 3rd position that they have held in the last four seasons.

Malaga and Atletico look set on staging that battle starting next Sunday, and if Madrid can't get something in the Nou Camp, the 11 point gap the Catalans will hold over them will seem almost impossible to overturn in the first week of October.

BASQUE BOASTING

Elsewhere it was the citizens of San Sebastian and the province of Guipuzcoa who were dealt the bragging rights over their neighbours in Bilbao and the villages of Vizcaya, when Real Sociedad ran out comfortable 2-0 victors of Athletic Bilbao in the Basque derby.

Antoine Griezmann and Carlos Vela, 2 of only 4 of the 28 players involved not raised in the Basque region, got the second-half goals for Real to give them a deserved win which would have been by a wider margin if it was not for Bilbao stopper Gorka Iraizoz.

Osasuna beat Levante 4-0 for a first win of the season to lift the side from Pamplona of the bottom, while Angolan striker Manucho was excellent grabbing 2 goals in Valladolid's 6-1 win over Rayo Vallecano.

Granada also clinched their first win, 2-1 over Celta Vigo, with the highly rated Brazilian Siqueira the hero. Although Celta pushed hard to get back they never recovered from the full-back’s devastating start that saw him convert an early penalty before dropping a perfect cross on the head of Romanian Gabriel Torje.

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About the author
Dermot  Ledwith
Dermot lives and works in Madrid where he watches far too much football as well as all the other sport he can possibly get away with.