La Liga, Week 5: Barcelona, Real notch victories

Let’s quickly wrap up the happenings on week five in Spain before week six begins tomorrow and this mildly insane stretch of league games for 11 straight days lumbers on without us.

Here’s a recap of all the matches from week five in Spain.

The man who did the deflecting, Pepe, soon made up for it with the equalising goal. Getafe played a dangerous attempted offside trap on a free kick, and it didn’t work. That allowed Ronaldo to sneak in at the back post, and although his initial shot was well saved by Miguel Moya, Pepe scrambled in the rebound from close range.

Getafe didn’t learn their lesson, and came within inches of going behind from a similar situation -- this time Ronaldo couldn’t get his effort on target. But the second goal was coming, and the Portuguese was the man to score it. His free kick was blocked in the box by Michel; the referee pointed to the spot and Ronaldo blasted past Moya to make it 2-1.

Rayo Vallecano played a tremendous match against Barcelona, but a hat trick from Pedro Rodriguez and stellar goalkeeping by Victor Valdés proved simply too much for Rayo to overcome.

Messi fired back a minute later, dancing around two Rayo defenders before a slightly heavy touch allowed a third Rayo player to clear the ball out, denying Messi a shot at the empty net. Neymar came close minutes later after Xavi found him in space on the left side of the box. His effort was cleared off the line at the last moment by Alejandro Gálvez