1st goals, then blood for Ronaldo in win
Despite watching Cristiano Ronaldo go off covered in blood, Real Madrid fans got to celebrate at home again with the team’s biggest win of the season in the Spanish league.
Ronaldo, who left the game late with a cut to his face, scored twice as Madrid routed Deportivo La Coruna 7-1 Sunday, ending a three-match winless streak at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium and easing the pressure on coach Zinedine Zidane and his players.
“The players needed a game like this, a victory with a lot of goals,” Zidane said. “It’s always good to score seven times at home. It’s not something that happens very often, so we are happy about it. We have to keep this momentum going.”
Gareth Bale and Nacho Fernandez also scored twice, and Luka Modric added a goal for Madrid as it regained fourth place in the standings. Madrid remains 19 points behind leader Barcelona, which later routed Real Betis 5-0 in Seville with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez each scoring two goals.
At the start of the league’s second half, Barcelona is 11 points in front of second-place Atlético Madrid.
Ronaldo had to leave with about five minutes remaining after being hit by defender Fabian Schar’s boot while scoring the team’s sixth goal with a header. Ronaldo was attended to on the field for a while and could not continue as blood spilled over his face.
Zidane said the Portugal forward needed “two or three stitches but was fine.”
Harry Kane scored his English Premier League-leading 21st goal in a 1-1 draw for Tottenham at Southampton. Tottenham remained in fifth place, and fourth-place Liverpool can pull five points clear in the Champions League spots with a win at Swansea on Monday.
In Germany, Thomas Mueller took his Bundesliga tally to 100 goals to help Bayern Munich stretch its considerable league lead to 16 points with a 4-2 win over visiting Werder Bremen. Poland’s Robert Lewandowski also had a day to remember as he scored two to become Bayern’s most prolific non-German scorer in the Bundesliga with 94 goals. His teammate, Dutch winger Arjen Robben, has 93.
Napoli appears more and more likely to end Juventus’ stranglehold on the Italian league title. Serie A resumed after a winter break and Maurizio Sarri’s team won 1-0 at Atalanta to extend its lead at the top of the Serie A standings to four points ahead of Juventus. Inter Milan drew 1-1 at home to fifthplace Roma and slipped to fourth. Lazio beat Chievo Verona 5-1 to move to third, but is 11 points behind Napoli with a match in hand.
Mallory Pugh scored two second-half goals, and the U.S. women’s national team opened the year with a 5-1 victory over Denmark in San Diego. Cal alum Alex Morgan, Santa Clara alum Julie Ertz and Crystal Dunn also scored for the topranked team. The U.S. was missing several regulars because of injuries. College football: Miami cornerback Malek Young’s football career is over. The Hurricanes said a neck injury Young sustained during last month’s Orange Bowl against Wisconsin will require career-ending surgery to repair. Young will remain on scholarship for the remainder of his academic career. Skiing: At Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Lara Gut of Switzerland won the final World Cup super-G before the Olympics, signaling a return to form after knee surgery last season. Lindsey Vonn was sixth. Her American teammate, World Cup leader Mikaela Shiffrin, missed a gate midway through her run and did not finish.
At Kitzbuehel, Austria, Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway finally got his first World Cup slalom victory of the season, ending Marcel Hirscher’s fiverace winning streak.