Real Madrid nets Spanish title
Real Madrid won the Spanish league for the first time in five years Sunday, avoiding its worst title drought since the 1980s and keeping Barcelona from winning a third straight championship.
Zinedine Zidane’s team secured its 33rd league title with a 2-0 win at Malaga with goals by Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.
“To win the title in the last round feels that much better,” Ronaldo said. “We deserved it.”
The victory gave Madrid a three-point advantage over second-place Barcelona, which rallied from two goals down to beat Eibar 4-2 at Camp Nou.
Madrid will pursue its third Champions League title in four seasons in a final against Juventus in Cardiff, Wales, on June 3.
It was the first league title for Zidane, the former France great who took over Madrid for his first head-coaching job less than 1½ years ago.
“It is very important to lift this trophy again after so many years without being able to win La Liga,” Zidane said.
England: Arsene Wenger’s proud record is over: Arsenal has failed to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in 20 years.
Arsenal’s hope of squeezing into the English Premier League top four relied on Liverpool or Manchester City falling, but each won easily to join Chelsea and Tottenham in entering the Champions League. City beat Watford 5-0, and Liverpool beat Middlesbrough 3-0.
So even though Arsenal beat Everton 3-1 to complete the league schedule with five successive wins, the resurgence came too late and Wenger had to settle for fifth — the lowest finish since taking charge of the team in 1996.
Chelsea is chasing a double. Antonio Conte’s side received the Premier League trophy after routing Sunderland 5-1, two weeks after securing a second title in three seasons.
Chelsea captain John Terry was honored before his final home game after a 22-year association with the club.
Tottenham striker Harry Kane retained the golden boot by finishing as the league’s top scorer (29 goals) for the second consecutive season. More Europe: Juventus clinched a record sixth straight Serie A title with a 3-0 win over relegation-threatened Crotone. Since Serie A was founded in 1929, no club had won more than five straight titles . ... Celtic became the first team in 118 years to complete a season undefeated in Scotland’s top division by beating Hearts 2-0. Celtic won 34 of its 38 league games, drawing the other four. MLS: Giovani dos Santos scored and the Los Angeles Galaxy capitalized on host Minnesota’s own goal to beat the expansion team 2-1 . ... Diego Fagundez scored two goals in 10 minutes and the host New England Revolution rallied to beat the Columbus Crew 2-1 . ... David Villa scored twice and New York City FC beat Orlando City 3-0 to extend its unbeaten streak to four.