::  News

Real Madrid beat Deportivo La Coruña 1-0 in a rather dull Sunday night match for which Fabio Cannavaro recovered just in time, enabling Juande Ramos to repeat his starting eleven while he left Christoph Metzelder on the bench. Raúl scored the only goal of the evening, and while the Madrid captain never tires of pointing out that "there's a lot of liga left", one cannot help noticing that Barcelona is quite easily maintaining their comfortable margin, whereas there's less liga left every week.

Real Madrid was in no position to turn down the presents offered to them in the match against bottom of the table team Osasuna on Sunday. What with referee Alfonso Pérez Burrull refusing Osasuna's Juanfran two penalties while offering him yellow cards instead, and goalie Roberto basically refusing to save Sergio Ramos's shot on his goal, Juande's slightly shaken team won 3-1 in the end (goals from Nekounam – minute 19, Ramos – 49, Higuaín – 63, and Robben – 92). However, with Barcelona still diligently doing their own homework, los blancos have come no nearer to closing the 12-point-gap that separates them from the la liga leaders.

Real Madrid beat RCD Mallorca 3-0 on Sunday with goals from Arjen Robben (minute 3), Raúl (m. 17 – the captain's 212th goal in his 500th match in La Liga) and, finally, Sergio Ramos (m. 66). Christoph Metzelder did not get to don his mask this time and spent the entire ninety minutes on the substitutes' bench.

Three debuts were made at the Bernabéu on Sunday: winter signings Lass and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar were in the starting eleven in a match against Villarreal that served as a turfwarming party for the new playing surface, worth a 160,000 Euros. Christoph Metzelder, who had suffered a broken nose in the last match of 2008, wasn't allowed on it at first, though, as Juande Ramos lined up centre backs Pepe and Cannavaro. It was Arjen Robben who put the home side in front with a brilliant shot half an hour into the match. Villarreal stepped up pressure in the second half, giving Madrid's Iker Casillas a number of opportunities to shine. In stoppage time, Christoph Metzelder finally got to show off his new protective mask, effectively scaring the opponents away from the Whites' goal. With this somewhat shaky 1-0 victory Real Madrid climb to third place while Barcelona still lead them by twelve points.