Barcelona are six points behind Liga leaders Real Madrid after a shocking 1-0 defeat at Getafe. Earlier in the day Real Madrid continued their dominance over their city rivals with a 4-2 defeat of Atletico Madrid who ended up with only 9 men after Thibaut Courtois and Diego Godín were both sent off.
A Valera goal from a second half corner proved enough to put an end to Barça’s run of 27 games without defeat. With Getafe opting for an ultra defensive strategy, Barça never looked comfortable. Though they dominated throughout, they lacked punch up front until the final few minutes of the game when they laid siege to Moyà’s goal. The Getafe keeper proved to be the home team’s hero when he managed to knock away a last minute attempt after Messi had hit the post.
Madrid, meanwhile, started the capital derby having won their last 12 matches in all competitions, but it appeared that number 13 may prove unlucky when Adrián López gave the visitors the lead after exchanging passes with Diego.
The game-changing moment came on 24 minutes, Courtois tripping Karim Benzema as striker attempted to round the Atletico goalkeeper. Penalty to Real and a straight red card to Courtois and Cristiano Ronaldo struck the resulting penalty past replacement keeper Sergio Asenjo.
Ángel Di María made it 2-1 from a Ronaldo cut-back, with substitute Gonzalo Higuaín punishing hesitancy from Godín to make it three. Godín was then dismissed for hauling down Higuaín, allowing Ronaldo to nonchalantly convert his second spot kick of the match.
Elsewhere Valencia tightened their grip on third place in La Liga as they survived a late fightback to claim a 2-1 victory at Rayo Vallecano.
Jonas Goncalves started the scoring in the 7-0 romp over Genk in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday and the Brazilian got the ball rolling again for Unai Emery’s side with a fine strike from 25 yards after 20 minutes.
Diego Alves was forced into saves from Alejandro Arribas and Andrija Delibasic either side of the break to preserve the lead, but Tino Costa made sure of the points with a trademark finish at the end of a flowing Valencia counter-attack ten minutes into the second half.
Substitute Raul Tamudo pulled one back for the hosts with four minutes remaining, but Valencia held on to stretch their advantage over fourth-placed Levante to four points.
