Valencia and Deportivo opened up a three point lead at the top at the end of week 10. Deportivo beat Zaragoza 2-0 on Saturday night with a goal in each half from Diego Tristán, and Valencia scraped a 2-2 draw against Rayo with an injury time goal from Diego Alonso on Sunday to hold on to their top spot on goal average. Rayo had taken a two goal lead through Bolic and Michel before Mendieta put them back in the game with a strike in the second half. One point separates the next six teams, with Real Madrid moving back up to third after a 5-1 victory against Las Palmas. The goals came from Hierro (2, including a penalty), Guti, Raúl and Savio for Madrid, and Guayre for the visitors, who ended up with eight men after González and Alvaro were sent off and Schurrer got injured late on. Hierro missed a late penalty which would have given him his hat-trick. Their crisis takes the air-shuttle to Barcelona, who lost 1-2 to Villarreal only days after being eliminated from the Champions League. Víctor scored within 36 seconds of the kick off and although Cocu equalised, the striker got his second in the second half. Referee Bueno Grimal gave out 14 yellow cards and caused a small riot with an overturned penalty decision near the end.

Mallorca took their recent tally to 16 points out of 18 with a 2-1 victory against Numancia to move up to fifth (goals from Finidi and Luque for Mallorca and Rubén Navarro for Numancia), behind fourth placed Alavés who lost 2-1 to Valladolid. Javi Moreno's eighth league goal of the season was not enough this time as Alberto and Ciric scored for the home side. Celta's Tomás equalised within a minute after Etxeberria had given Athletic Bilbao the lead, but a Lacruz header in the second half gave the Basques a much needed victory, and Oviedo moved back up to the top half of the table with an Oli goal against Real Sociedad. The San Sebastian club drop to the bottom of the table below Osasuna on goal average after they drew 0-0 at Racing Santander. The Málaga Espanyol match also ended score-less.

Tenerife opened up a three point lead at the top of the second division with a 3-0 victory over second placed Córdoba. Sevilla took advantage of slip ups by all the other teams in the top half of the division to move back up to second. Their 4-0 victory over Compostela included a hat-trick from Diego Ribero. Jaén drop out of the promotion spots after losing 5-2 to Lleida. They had only let in six in eleven matches up to this week. Atlético Madrid signed Paulo Futre as general manager and his influence apparently worked as they won 0-1 at Extremadura to move out of the drop zone. Coach Marcos Alonso left Kiko back in Madrid for this game. (12.11.00)