A poor week for Spanish sides in Europe as the knock-out stages of the two competitions began. On Tuesday Soldado's strike in the Champions League tie between Valencia and Schalke '04 was cancelled out by a goal from Raúl, a man who has graced these pages for many years. And on Wednesday an early goal from Barcelona's Villa was overturned by two from Cesc's Arsenal in the last ten minutes, leaving Guardiola's team needing a victory in the return leg in three week's time. The following day Sevilla were virtually dumped out of the Europa League, Kanouté's goal not enough as they lost 1-2 to Porto, and Villarreal's presence in the next round is in the balance after a 0-0 draw at Napoli. Still the second legs are yet to come.

Barcelona and Real Madrid are in a league of their own once again this year, and the gap between them and the rest opened to twelve points after both won this weekend. Real Madrid started things off of Saturday, Benzema and Carvalho the goalscorers in a 2-0 win over Levante, and on Sunday Barcelona beat Athletic Bilbao 2-1, with Messi getting the winner after Villa's strike was cancelled out by an Iraola penalty. In general though there were few goals this weekend, the 17 scored in the ten games the lowest tally of the season, and only Agüero got his name on the scoresheet out of the rest of our top scorers. One who did find the net though was Deportivo's Aranzubia, his late headed equaliser apparently the first ever scored by a keeper in outfield play in the history of the first division! (23.02.11)