No doubt about the game of the week this week, with Real Madrid and Barcelona resuming their rivalry once again after the two week lay-off for the World Cup qualifiers. Everybody expected Eto'o to be given a hard time in the Bernabeu stadium after his insults against his old club during Barcelona's league winning celebrations last summer, but his apologies and Barça's brilliant performance meant that what protests there were were soon forgotten. Eto'o has made a habit of scoring against the Merengues since he left them some time ago, and he got his name on the scorecard again with only a quarter of an hour gone to take his tally to 16 for the season in only 17 games. In fact the only challenge for the Pichichi title this season is coming from his own back yard, Ronaldinho scoring two brilliant goals which even the anti-Barcelona local fans had to applaud to move just three behind his team mate.

Elsewhere the referee awarded two of Deportivo's goals against Racing Santander to Diego Tristán and Valerón despite that fact that both appeared to come off local defenders. It remains to be seen whether the Madrid based sports paper Marca (who give out the official Pichichi awards at the end of the season) go with the referee's report or decide to make their own mind up. There was some controversy to say the least last season when they overruled the officials to award a goal to Deco rather than Eto'o. Luis García was on target again as Espanyol recorded their first win in over two months, and Nené, Baiano and Edgar (who makes it into our chart for the first time) also added to their totals.

Baiano also scored ten days ago in the fourth round of the cup, a last minute strike against Baza which took Celta through to the last sixteen. The other three first division sides who played also made it through, with Getafe running out 2-4 winners over Lleida in extra time thanks to a hat-trick from Paunovic and another strike from Güiza. Llorente got a couple as Athletic Bilbao shrugged off their poor league form to beat L'Hospitalet, and Cádiz won against Burgos to complete the frame. Atlético and Zaragoza play their matches next week. (21.11.05)