Barcelona ends winless skid
Real Madrid keeps pace, but Ronaldo leaves match with injury
MADRID — Barcelona sent a strong message to Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid on Wednesday, demolishing Deportivo La Coruna 8-0 to end a four-game winless streak and keep its lead in the Spanish league.
Luis Suarez scored four goals and set up three others to help Barcelona stop its free fall and show its determination to win the league for a second year in a row despite recent struggles.
Lionel Messi, Neymar, Mark Bartra and Ivan Rakitic also scored for the Catalan club at the Riazor Stadium in La Coruna.
The much-needed win gave Barcelona 79 points to keep it ahead of Atletico Madrid, which defeated Athletic Bilbao 1-0 with a 38thminute goal by striker Fernando Torres for its eighth win in nine league games.
Atletico also reached 79 points, but it trails Barcelona on tiebreakers.
Real Madrid stayed one point behind Barcelona and Atletico with four rounds to go after a 3-0 win over Villarreal. Karim Benzema opened the scoring at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in the 41st, Lucas Vazquez added a second in the 69th and Luka Modric rounded off in the 76th.
“The team was phenomenal from the first minute until the last,” said Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane, whose team has won eight league games in a row.
Cristiano Ronaldo left the match just before the final whistle with an apparent right-leg muscle injury. The club said he would undergo tests as a precaution on Thursday but it did not appear to be a serious problem.
Barcelona’s big lead had evaporated after a draw and three consecutive losses in the league, including one against Real Madrid at the Camp Nou. The team’s turmoil was compounded by elimination by Atletico in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
“We played a great game and were very effective, creating infinite options,” Barcelona coach Luis Enrique said. “We made sure we took our early chances. From there on, everything was on a roll. It was a spectacular result for us.”
The goalfest answered critics who doubted whether Barcelona would be able to overcome its recent struggles and remain in contention for a second consecutive league title.
Luis Enrique’s team had been cruising in first place, with a nine-point lead over Atletico and a 12-point advantage over Real Madrid. But it all collapsed quickly after a 2-2 draw at Villarreal and consecutive losses to Real Madrid, Real Sociedad and Valencia, the last one also at the Camp Nou. The defeat to Madrid halted the team’s record 39-game unbeaten streak.
Playing a difficult away game at the Riazor stadium and facing a team it had struggled against recently, fans feared another setback on Wednesday. Barcelona hadn’t beaten Deportivo in two games, including at the Camp Nou earlier this season when it squandered a two-goal lead in a 2-2 draw.
But it didn’t take long for the Catalan club to start turning things around.
Suarez opened the scoring in the 11th and added his other goals in the 24th, 53rd and 64th minutes. Rakitic got on the board in the 47th, Messi in the 73rd, Bartra in the 79th and Neymar in the 81st to end his five-game scoreless streak.