Rounding up the top games last week in Spain Portugal & Germany

As we head into an international break, we were gifted an exceptional weekend of football across the continent. Here is a look back at the weekend, detailing the significant stories we take from the top leagues in Spain, Germany, and Portugal.

Spanish La Liga

Does anyone want to win La Liga this season? At this point last year, Barcelona were in pole position having only dropped two points all campaign, but fast-forward 365 days to today, and despite holding the top spot, they have already dropped 12 points. In the biggest shock of the weekend, they lost 4-3 at home to a Real Betis side who thanks to this win have scored 33% of their goals this season in the Camp Nou. Messi had returned for the Catalan club, but it wasn’t enough to see Barcelona overturn the deficit in this game. Barcelona were reduced to 10 men following Ivan Rakitic’s sending off late on.

Santiago Solari has technically been in a 10-day job interview for the Real Madrid job, and he aced his last task, by preparing his side to win comfortably in Celta Vigo 4-2. Following the result, he confirmed Real Madrid manager until the end of the season. In another highly entertaining match, we saw Atletico Madrid come from 2-1 down to beat Athletic Bilbao in the last minute 3-2. Hobbling on one leg, the Uruguayan stalwart Diego Godin showed his heroicness by heading in the winner that escaped the VAR review and gave the side from Madrid all three points. Elsewhere, Sevilla maintained 2^nd place with a hard-earned victory against high flying Espanyol, and Alaves are in the Champions League places after beating bottom-placed Huesca.

German Bundesliga

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The real excitement for the Bundesliga this week was the Der Klassiker (German Clasico) that pitted league leaders Borussia Dortmund against defending champions Bayern Munich. After a solid opening 45 minutes for Bayern Munich who led at the half, they succumbed to a spirited Borussia Dortmund fightback in the second half; the final result was 3-2 to Dortmund. Like so many times this season, Dortmund had to come from behind not once, but twice in this match to get the win and move 4 points clear at the top of the league, significantly they are 7 points ahead of Bayern. Bayern’s Robert Lewandowsi was on the scoresheet against his former club and was denied a second goal (which would have been the equaliser) in the last minute due to an offside decision but it was not to be in this highly enthralling match. Most neutrals would view this as the game of the season so far with twists, turns, chances at either end and plenty of free-flowing football. A Der Klassiker worthy of the name and it looks like Borussia Dortmund real title contenders.

Borussia Monchengladbach has moved into 2^nd place in the league table, with an impressive 3-1 victory at Werder Bremen, thanks to Alassane Plea who scored a 23-minute hat-trick to put his team in control of the fixture. It feels like a lifetime ago now, but the weekend started with Hannover 96 winning their second game of the season, against fellow underperformers Wolfsburg on Friday night, winning 2-1. Another week passes, and another week where Schalke 04 and Bayern Leverkusen have embarrassing results. They both lost 3-0 away from home to Eintracht Frankfurt and RB Leipzig respectively.

Portuguese Liga NOS

In the top of the table clash, current champions Porto hosted Braga on Saturday night, who came into the game undefeated. In a cagey game, Porto came out on top, scoring an 88^th minute winner from Francisco Soares who is starting to make it a habit of his. Braga has an undistinguished record in Porto, having failed to win there since 2015, so going so close to grabbing a precious point will possibly have dented their belief that they could maintain a title challenge this season – football can be cruel.

Benfica finally remembered how to win a game, as got their first victory since beating Porto before the last international break. In stormy conditions, they had to come back from conceding a goal within 40 seconds against Tondela, but with the help of the referee, who sent off a player for a questionable foul, Benfica turned it around to win 3-1. To further add to their frustration, Tondela finished with 9 men.

Sporting Lisbon scraped a 2-1 win in their match against Chaves, thanks to Bas Dost who scored two goals. The match was marred by another dubious red card again awarded against a team playing one from Lisbon (conspiracy theory anyone?) and although Chaves did manage to equalise late in the game it was not enough. The second goal from Bas Dost an 86th-minute penalty was to the neutral on-looker, even more spurious than the earlier red card. However, given that Sporting had 64% possession and 17 shots to Chaves’s 3, justice was probably done.

Unfortunately, poor refereeing decisions are the becoming the main talking points in Portugal, who unlike in England – have VAR (video assistant referees), which makes it all the more frustrating for fans.