European football round-up: Messi mullers Gerd and Falcao hits five

Spain: Messi scored his 85^th and 86^th goals of the season as Barcelona beat Real Betis 2-1 to stay six points clear at the top of La Liga. Atletico are second, with Radamel Falcao roaring back into form for them with a scarcely believable five goal haul in their 6-0 win over Deportivo la Coruna. A Mesut Ozil brace helped Real Madrid win a close match 3-2 at Real Valladolid to stay five behind Atletico. There were big wins for Malaga and Levante who stay in 4th and 6th respectively thanks to their 4-0 victories over Granada and Mallorca.

Italy: League leaders Juventus won 1-0 on the road at Palermo with a Stephan Lichtsteiner goal proving enough for Conte’s side to take the three points. Juve are now four points clear at the top, with Inter leapfrogging Napoli into second after a 2-1 win over the Neapolitan side at the San Siro. Roma jumped into 4th place following a 4-2 win at home against Fiorentina. Both those sides are on 29 points, along with Lazio, who play on Monday night. AC MIlan continued their resurgence in the league with a fine 4-2 win away at Torino. MIlan are in 7th, five points off the three sides on 29 points.

Germany: A 35th minute red card for Marcel Schmelzer led to Dortmund losing 3-2 at home to Wolfsburg to lose more ground on Bayern Munich. The referee later apologised for the incident, where the defender was sent off and a penalty awarded for what he thought was a handball on the line, but actually was a fair clearance. The defending Bundesliga champions are third, 14 points behind the league leaders. Munich themselves won 2-0 at Augsburg. Second placed Bayer Leverkusen also lost, 3-2 away at Hannover. Schalke’s dreadful league form was extended by a 3-1 loss at Stuttgart. Five games without a win has seen them drop to fifth. Along with Bayern, the only other member of the top five to win was Eintracht Frankfurt, who thumped Werder Bremen 4-1 at home to go fourth.

France: In a weekend where six out the ten matches were draws, PSG took advantage of slip ups elsewhere to go back into second with a 4-0 win at home to Evian. They moved ahead of Marseilles on goal difference, after the latter lost 3-0 at home to Lorient. Lyon are five points clear at the top of the league after 1-0 win at fourth placed St Etienne in a match where both sides finished with ten men.

images: © prettyfriendship, © jeroen bennink

Nick Harris

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I'm Nick Harris, Spurs fan and sports writer. Alongside HITC, I'm the founder, editor, writer, and fan of footballspirals.com and can be found on Twitter - @nicksharris. When I'm not watching sport I'm usually drinking coffee and checking updates on my phone in an antisocial manner.