What a game this weekend, Spain's top two clubs Real Madrid and Barcelona producing a footballing treat in a match which finished 4-2 but could easily have been 9-8. Luxemburgo found room in his starting line up for Ronaldo, Raúl and Owen, and all three got on the scoresheet after Zidane's opener as the Merengues kept themselves in the running for the title. Eto'o got the goal he wanted though against his old side, incidentally the 1,000th scored by away teams in the Bernabeu stadium, and Ronaldinho scored what could be an important strike at the end of the season if the sides are level on points, giving the Catalans the head-to-head advantage after the 3-0 result in the Nou Camp earlier in the season. Eto'o ended up being carried off on a stretcher, but although early reports were of a possible serious knee injury which could keep him out to the end of the season, doctors confirmed the following day that it was not so bad and he should only miss a game or two.

Talking of Eto'o, we have had a couple of e-mails from our readers asking why we awarded him the goal against Mallorca (week 24) when other sites gave the goal to Deco. As we have mentioned in the past, there is no officially approved source for this other than the referees' reports, and each newspaper and website interprets the facts as they see fit. The ref's report of the day and the official LFP website both gave the goal to Eto'o (they believe Deco's shot took a slight deflection off the striker), taking him to 22 in the league this weekend. The media are divided though, with two TV channels, Canal Plus and TVE, and the Catalan sports daily El Mundo Deportivo all agreeing with the LFP, whereas the Madrid based sports papers Marca and As, and the Barcelona based Sport all mark him down for 21. Barça's own website gives the goal to Deco though, and as this must be the most reliable source we are prepared to make an exception and agree with them. We do reserve the right to change again though if the general consensus is reversed.

Difficult to believe after all that, but there were other games going on this week, and many of the top strikers were on target. Baptista popped one in at Espanyol and his fellow countrymen and neighbours Oliveira and Edu did likewise against Levante. Ezquerro got another in Athletic's derby win against Real Sociedad, as did Yeste, and Di Vaio got a brace against Málaga. Savio and Villa were both on target as Zaragoza sank Mallorca without trace, and Luque came on as sub to score for Depor against Villarreal just a couple of minutes after making his appearance. The "yellow submarine" had a rough ride on Thursday against Alkmaar in the UEFA cup, with Riquelme missing a penalty for the first time since joining the club, but at least he got one goal to keep them in with a chance of reaching the semis. (11.04.05)