La Liga, Round 23: Barcelona re-take first place from Atlético Madrid

Barca and Madrid both won easily and thanks to tiebreakers, the Blaugrana are back on top of the league after a short break. Don’t fret though, the title race is still very much on and remains a three team affair for the time being.

Here’s a full list of the results from round 23 in Spain.

Sevilla took the lead in the 15th minute after a series of short passes that involved four different players before finally getting past Victor Valdés. Ivan Rakitić‘s run inside of Gerard Piqué, followed by a clever give and go Diogo Figueiras caused the Barca defense to get turned around as Rakitić laid the ball off towards the of the box where Vitolo took the slightest touch to Alberto Moreno whose shot through a massive crowd eluded Valdés.

Valdés was completely fooled by Carlos Bacca’s header in the 20th minute but Barca was saved by the post which managed to keep the home side from taking a 2-0 lead.

Bale was again in involved in the 25th minute, dribbling by his defender on the right side of the box and crossing the ball toward the near post. Despite a nice recovery from Jaume Costa, who managed to deflect the cross, the ball still found Benzema, who directed the ball past Asenjo at close range to double Madrid’s lead.

Jesé pushed Madrid’s lead back to two goals in the 64th minute with a cheeky touch that caught the Villarreal defense off guard. Ángel di Maria found Jesé with a quick pass as the Madrid youngster raced past the back line into the Villarreal area. Instead of taking an extra step or touch as Asenjo and the defense apparently expected, Jesé took a lightning quick touch, rolling the ball past the goalkeeper to make it 3-1.