week 20 of la liga

wow, what a weekend. my bilbao come from behind in the basque derby & manage a point and more impressive than that, atletico madrid actually win!
madrid were away to zaragoza who had many of the early chances and just couldn't finish any of them. so it's heartbreak for them when a perfect pass sets up maxi rodriguez to score and then my supermulleted torres scores a penalty. he should have had a second - his goal was called offside even though it looked level. and when i say supermullet, i mean supermullet. he got a haircut & had the sides shaved & everything. it's a disaster.
shall we also call real betis's season so far a disaster? a high flying valencia was the last team they needed to visit & sure enough, 2 goals by the cutie david villa saw yet another loss for betis. villa looked cute even in the bizarrely bright blue & orange away kit.
i think david lopez of osasuna wants a move to valencia... why else would he highlight his hair like he does? unfortunaely the most he could do for his team was a nice shot that hit the bar. his teammate raul garcia did start the scoring but villareal totally dived their way to their first penalty; at least the second actually looked worthy but still....
there was another questionable penalty in the racing santander v sevilla game. the racing boy in question barely touched the sevilla boy and he went down like pippo inzaghi. yikes.
real madrid almost had a scare against a fiesty cadiz. 6000+ travelling supporters pushed cadiz to a great start - including the first goal early in the 2nd half. but madrid bounced back & after 2 goals via freekicks (including a really nice beckham one) all that was left was a great robinho goal. and his little dance celebrations are so much better solo than when ronaldo is his partner.
there was weirdness in the 2-0 barcelona win over alaves. valdez, our jamie parker wannabe, grabbed hold of the ball right on the edge of the box - his body was outside the line, but he kept the ball just barely in/on the line. the ref gave him a yellow card & alavez got a freekick for a foul. why? if the ref really thought that was handling outside the box i would think valdez would have seen red. and if the ref believed all was good & the ball never crossed the line, why did alavez get a freekick? the only thing more confusing was maxi's shiny shiny blond hair contrasted with a gigantic black headband. it's not a look you see all that often.
finally, we have the basque derby. real sociedad are up for this from the whistle and are 2-0 up from nihat before halftime. the second goal was assisted by a lovely backheel by skouba. but athletic bilbao come back from the break after what must have been a great pep talk: 2 goals by aduriz (one a great header) and they are right back in it. too bad that real scoiedad immediately responded with a goal of their own and once again, bilbao are behind. and that third goal, by skouba assisted by nihat (can you tell who were the stars for sociedad?), was a beauty & worthy of a match winner. but somehow, in true derby drama, bilbao don't give up & manage to score the equalizer in injury time. 6 yellow cards, 6 goals, the 2 basque teams show that even if they are both struggling at the wrong end of the table, there's still some fight left in them both.