La Liga, Week 3: Real Madrid Walk Over Granada

The first half started with a lot of back and forth: Barcelona threatening through their imposing midfield trio, while Valencia worked mainly through Soldado and Andrés Guardado, who had to leave the pitch in the second half. 23 minutes into the half, and it was time for Barcelona: Adriano aimed high and inside, and blasted a shot from the corner of the box into the upper corner of the goal, far from a leaping Diego Alves. It was a good-looking goal, but again, not a Barcelona-y goal: there wasn’t a huge amount of buildup, and it was mainly pretty because of the pinpoint accuracy and power combination.

The game’s main moment of controversy came in the 60th minute, when Victor Ruiz scored for Valencia; it was a close, bang-bang play that could easily have gone the other way, but on replay he did appear to be offsides. It was a free kick from outside the area, and Ruiz took off a microsecond too soon. It’s a tough break for Valencia, but not an unfair one.

(16:00 CET, 10:00 AM EST)

Celta have made a nice go of it so far, and I’d go as far as to say that they might not be certainly relegated this year.