Club handed two-game partial closure and £17,000 fine Athletic Club player hit out at ‘stupid people’ after incident Atlético Madrid have been ordered to partially close their south stand for two matches by the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) after Athletic Club player Nico Williams suffered racist abuse in Saturday’s La Liga game. The referee, Juan Marténez Munuera, stopped the match in the 36th minute as part of La Liga’s protocol against racism after he heard racist abuse directed at the 21-year-old Spain international, who was born in Pamplona to Ghanaian parents ..read more

A third-tier goalkeeper stole headlines in Spain, where Rodrigo de Paul’s assessment of his team was a talking point “Football is so capricious that when Sunday comes maybe he’ll make us happy,” Javi Rey said. For the first time ever, Club Deportivo Arenteiro, the team from O Carballiño that were playing in the Galician regional league six years ago that he now manages, were heading to Riazor, twice the size of their town, to face Deportivo de La Coruña. Without a goalkeeper. Diego Garcia and Manu Figueroa were injured; Pablo Brea is on loan from their opponents, who had applied one of those c ..read more

Announcement was no shock but reflects environment shift at club and an appetite to find stability after a dismal week Being the Barcelona manager is “cruel and unpleasant” Xavi Hernández said, but in the end it is all he ever wanted, all he has got. He is all they have got too. And so on Wednesday night, three days after any lingering hopes of winning the league were extinguished, eight days after being knocked out of Europe again, 88 after announcing he was leaving and calling it a “liberation”, he decided that he would continue after all. Ultimately, he just could not let go and nor could t ..read more

Lamine Yamal’s strike in 3-2 loss on Sunday not given by VAR Barça believe ball crossed the line and could demand replay Barcelona’s president, Joan Laporta, has threatened legal action and could demand a replay after his side were denied a goal against Real Madrid at the weekend. Lamine Yamal thought he had scored in the 28th minute of Sunday’s 3-2 clásico loss at the Bernabéu but the on-pitch officials did not rule the ball had crossed the line, and after a lengthy VAR check, their decision stood. La Liga does not use goalline technology ..read more

English midfielder ended ‘goal drought’ with impeccable timing, in a season that could hardly have gone better Jude Victor William Bellingham, this is your league. The title opened with him and effectively closed with him too, told the way it had to be, an inevitability to it all. In the beginning he had stood arms wide in front of 48,927 people at San Mamés, the ground so revered they call it the Cathedral, having scored his first Real Madrid goal on his debut. In the end, he stood arms wide in front of 77,981 at his new home, having just scored his 21st, 17 of them in La Liga. From August to ..read more

The league opened with Jude Bellingham and closed with him too. Way back in August, the Englishman stood before the stands at the place they call the Cathedral and spread his arms wide having scored on the first night of the rest of his life, his arrival announced; now, eight months later, he did it again, the entire Santiago Bernabéu welcomed in, all 77,981 of them, and millions more around the world. It has become a trademark, and it meant the title. Ninety minutes were up in the biggest game on earth and it was 2-2 when Lucas Vázquez, absolutely tireless all night, delivered one last pass t ..read more

Barcelona led twice but Madrid equalised before Jude Bellingham’s injury-time winner near enough settled the title Email! “I have no horse in this race,” says Adam Griffiths, “but Barcelona putting out their line-up in squad number rather than position order means I want them to get a) fired from a catapult into a volcano and b) a right doing tonight.” I am, of course, impartial, but also I can’t argue with facts ..read more

Having been knocked out of the Champions League, failure to win at the Bernabéu will end all hopes of a trophy On Tuesday, some Barcelona fans mistakenly threw stones and bottles at their own bus as it made its way into Montjuïc. The huge club badge and massive “Barça” written on the side were not enough of a clue. In fairness, they might not have seen that through the crowd and all the smoke. As for the metaphor, the self-inflicted damage, that was harder to miss. By the end of the night, Barcelona were out of the Champions League, failing to reach the semi-final for a sixth successive season ..read more

The former Arsenal and Spain midfielder, now 38, is loving playing for his home club Real Oviedo in the second division The day Spain’s history changed for ever, Santi Cazorla scored in the shootout. He scored on his Recreativo de Huelva debut in 2006, the first of 143 goals going back 18 years, got his last for Arsenal in front of 59,962 at the Emirates in autumn 2016, and netted a 96th-minute equaliser in Moscow 754 days and 10 operations later, having been told to settle for walking again. He scored in the FA Cup final at Wembley, at the Santiago Bernabéu and the Camp Nou, at Old Trafford a ..read more

Even a VAR-inflicted 1-1 draw against Villarreal did not spoil the Basque club’s celebrations after a first major trophy in 40 years They had been down to Seville 907km away, 100,000 of them, and come back with their first major honour in 40 years, finally won well after midnight. They had made a victory parade of the traffic jam home, the Roman road known as the Silver Route turned red and white. And they had taken the trophy to the tree of Gernika, symbol of their people. There was the impromptu street party, a police fine imposed for the mobile disco heading through the old town, the whole ..read more