Barcelona and Sevilla all but mathematically sealed their places in this year’s cup final after both clocked up big wins in their semi-final first leg ties. On Wednesday Barcelona made mincemeat of Gary Neville’s Valencia, Luis Suárez scoring four and Messi squeezing in a hat-trick in-between for a massive 7-0 win, the biggest scoreline in a semi-final in 57 years! And the following day Sevilla also thumped their opponents Celta 4-0, including two from Gameiro, to set up a repeat of last summer’s European Super Cup. Some of you may recall that that game ended 5-4 to Barça, so we are probably in for a treat!

A bit quieter at the weekend this week, although Luis Suárez was on target again on Sunday as Barcelona beat Levante 0-2 to maintain the three point gap at the top. The day before Atlético had thrown down the gauntlet with a 3-1 victory over Eibar, Fernando Torres finally getting his 100 th goal in an Atleti shirt after a drought which had lasted nineteen weeks (curiously his last goal was also against Eibar half a season ago)! Real Madrid stay a point behind their city rivals after they won 1-2 at Granada, but although Benzema started things off by scoring for the sixth week in a row, it look a last gasp effort from Modric to finally tie up the three points. Elsewhere though only two of our “Pichichis” added to their tallies, Charles netting for Málaga in a 3-0 win over Getafe on Friday night, and Rubén Castro getting the only goal for Betis against a Valencia side who haven’t won in the league now for eleven weeks. (10.02.16)

Pichichi League Cup Europe Total (Penalties)
Luis Suárez (Barcelona) 20 5 11 36 (2)
Ronaldo (Real Madrid) 19 0 11 30 (7)
Aduríz (Athletic Bilbao) 13 6 6 25 (3)
Messi (Barcelona) 12 6 6 24 (2)
Benzema (Real Madrid) 19 0 4 23 (0)
Neymar (Barcelona) 16 3 2 21 (4)
Griezmann (Atlético) 12 3 4 19 (0)
Gameiro (Sevilla) 12 3 2 17 (5)
Borja Bastón (Eibar) 15 1 0 16 (2)
Lucas Pérez (Deportivo) 14 0 0 14 (1)
Bale (Real Madrid) 13 0 0 13 (0)
Agirretxe (Real Sociedad) 12 0 0 12 (0)
Bakambu (Villarreal) 8 1 3 12 (0)
Williams (Athletic) 7 3 2 12 (0)
Iago Aspas (Celta) 9 2 0 11 (0)
Alcácer (Valencia) 9 2 0 11 (2)
Rubén Castro (Betis) 10 0 0 10 (2)
Sanabria (Sporting) 10 0 0 10 (1)
Charles (Málaga) 9 0 0 9 (0)
Javi Guerra (Rayo) 9 0 0 9 (0)
Nolito (Celta) 8 0 0 8 (1)
Jozabed (Rayo) 8 0 0 8 (0)
Sergi Enrich (Eibar) 6 2 0 8 (0)
Caicedo (Espanyol) 6 2 0 8 (0)
Guidetti (Celta) 3 5 0 8 (1)
Negredo (Valencia) 3 4 1 8 (2)