No doubt about the best goal in the mid-week Champions League semi-finals, the one scored by Saúl Ñíguez to give Atlético Madrid victory over Bayern Munich! OK, so it was the only goal in the two games, but even if it wasn’t it would have been, if you follow our meaning? Guardiola likened it to a strike from Messi, high praise indeed! That was on Wednesday, and the day before Real Madrid drew 0-0 at Manchester City to set up the prospect of another all-Madrid final. And the Europa League could be all Spanish as well after Sevilla and Villarreal clocked up good results on Thursday, the four-time champions drawing 2-2 at Shakhtar Donetsk with an early Vitolo strike and a late Gameiro penalty, and the East coasters beating Liverpool 1-0 with an injury time goal from Adrián López. La Liga rules!

The antepenultimate round of games of the season this weekend, with the big three still separated by a single point after all won. Gareth Bale stepped in once again for the missing Ronaldo and Benzema to give Real Madrid a 0-1 victory at Real Sociedad, and Griezmann (left on the bench at the start) coming on to score the only goal within 40 seconds of making his appearance for Atlético at Rayo Vallecano. And later in the evening Barcelona beat Betis 0-2 to stay at the top of the table, Rakitic and Luis Suárez getting the goals there in the second half. Suárez moves four clear of Ronaldo in the race for the league “Pichichi”, and he is also on line for another European Golden Boot.

Elsewhere Villarreal made sure of the fourth Champions League spot with a 0-2 victory at Valencia, and Athletic Bilbao are currently fifth after they came from behind to win 2-1 against the team who were immediately above them, Celta. Aduríz returned from an injury lay-off to get the first from the penalty spot, and Raúl García got the second, catching the keeper out with an improvised shot whilst lying on the ground. With Sevilla sure of the third Europa League place, the European line-up for next season is already complete, but the fight to avoid relegation looks like going to the wire, Levante the only team to be sure of going down after the weekend fixtures. There is only one point between the four teams above them however, Granada staying ahead of their rivals after recovering from two early Jonathan Viera goals to beat Las Palmas 3-2, El-Arabi once again on the scoresheet for the Andalusians. Espanyol are all but mathematically safe though after they beat a depleted Sevilla 1-0, Caicedo getting his first goal in six matches to give the Catalans the three points. (03.05.16)

Pichichi League Cup Europe Total (Penalties)
Luis Suárez (Barcelona) 35 5 14 54 (4)
Ronaldo (Real Madrid) 31 0 16 47 (8)
Messi (Barcelona) 25 6 9 40 (4)
Aduríz (Athletic Bilbao) 18 6 10 34 (4)
Griezmann (Atlético) 21 3 6 30 (2)
Neymar (Barcelona) 23 3 3 29 (6)
Benzema (Real Madrid) 23 0 4 27 (0)
Gameiro (Sevilla) 16 3 7 26 (7)
Bakambu (Villarreal) 12 1 9 22 (0)
Bale (Real Madrid) 19 0 0 19 (0)
Borja Bastón (Eibar) 17 1 0 18 (2)
Iago Aspas (Celta) 14 4 0 18 (1)
Rubén Castro (Betis) 17 0 0 17 (2)
Lucas Pérez (Deportivo) 16 0 0 16 (1)
El-Arabi (Granada) 15 1 0 16 (6)
Alcácer (Valencia) 13 2 0 15 (2)
Agirretxe (Real Sociedad) 13 0 0 13 (0)
Williams (Athletic) 8 3 2 13 (0)
Guidetti (Celta) 7 5 0 12 (2)
Negredo (Valencia) 5 5 2 12 (2)
Nolito (Celta) 11 0 0 11 (1)
Javi Guerra (Rayo) 11 0 0 11 (0)
Sanabria (Sporting) 11 0 0 11 (1)
Parejo (Valencia) 8 1 2 11 (3)
Viera (Las Palmas) 10 0 0 10 (4)
Charles (Málaga) 10 0 0 10 (0)
Fernando Torres (Atlético) 9 0 1 10 (0)
Caicedo (Espanyol) 8 2 0 10 (0)
Raúl García (Athletic) 6 1 3 10 (0)