Real Madrid were crowned La Liga champions for the 34th time on Thursday after Karim Benzema scored twice in a 2-1 victory over Villarreal which clinched the title with one game to spare. Benzema\u2019s double included a second-half penalty at the empty Alfredo di Stefano Stadium as Madrid moved seven points clear to end Barcelona\u2019s two-year hold on the trophy. Barca had to prevail against Osasuna at home and hope Madrid slipped up but their fading challenge ended with a 2-1 defeat at Camp Nou, despite a brilliant Lionel Messi free-kick.<\/p>\n
It means Madrid claim their third La Liga title in 12 years, after a relentless run of form since Spanish football resumed on June 11 following the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
Zinedine Zidane\u2019s side have won 10 games out 10 since the restart. They have conceded four goals in that time and never been behind in a match. \u201cFor me this is one of the best days in my professional career,\u201d said Zidane. \u201cAfter lockdown and everything, it\u2019s astonishing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madrid have also been awarded five penalties during the run-in, some of them controversially, and this one caused a stir too as Sergio Ramos tried to roll the ball to Benzema, who finished, but had entered the area too early.<\/p>\n
Much to Villarreal\u2019s irritation, Madrid were allowed to retake and this time Benzema made no mistake, before Vicente Iborra headed in what proved a late consolation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a prize for all the work we\u2019ve done, this is the reward,\u201d said Ramos. \u201cWe have one more match and we want to win 11 out of 11.\u201d<\/p>\n
The title loss has brought renewed pressure to FC Barcelona head coach Setien. After the lockdown, Barcelona returned to football at the top of the table, but several sub-standard performances have resulted in the title being conceded to Zizou\u2019s Real Madrid who have been much superior ever since the restart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Real Madrid moved ahead of their arch rivals FC Barcelona to lift the La Liga <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":32534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[239,266,267],"class_list":["post-10026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-messi","tag-real-madrid","tag-zidane"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}