Barcelona embraces greatness as Ronaldo shrugs off Villarreal challenge

Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola must be weary of post-match press conferences. What exactly is there left to say about his team? Widely, and rightly, regarded as the best there is in the world today, it will take little more than a continuance of Barça's current form for Guardiola to be recorded as the overseer of the greatest club side in history.

Once again on Saturday, his charges scored freely and kept the opposition at bay in a 0-4 win at Deportivo, all the more noteworthy as the home side had only conceded five at the Riazor in eight games prior to Barcelona's visit. Goals from David Villa, Leo Messi, Pedro and Andrés Iniesta consigned Depor to a seventh Liga defeat this season.

"Although we won 4-0 we had few chances," Guardiola observed. "It was hard to get past the good structure of Deportivo. It was difficult to find space because [Depor Miguel Ángel] Lotina did his homework. But we were inspired."

With the pressure on Real Madrid to stay close to a runaway Barcelona, Villarreal twice took the lead in the Bernabéu on Sunday night in an impressive first-half showing. But Cristiano Ronaldo, so often José Mourinho's on-pitch savior this season, put in a virtuoso performance to drag Real back into the match. Cani gave the visitor the lead but the Portugal winger struck back immediately. Marco Ruben again put Villarreal ahead before Ronaldo scored on the stroke of half time. Real's third came from the same source before Kaká added a fourth to wrap up a critical home victory for Mourinho's team.

In spite of Sevilla's recent woeful form, 2011 has thus far been kind to Gregorio Manzano, who took over the reins in September but failed to get the side firing. However, having gone behind twice at Real Sociedad, Sevilla recovered to win 2-3.

Manzano did not need to receive divine inspiration of any kind nor will he ruminate unduly on a formula for continued success. At Real Sociedad's Anoeta stadium, Frédéric Kanouté and Luis Fabiano started together for the first time in the league since an away win at Zaragoza. In the previous match against Valencia the strike pair also started. That was the last time Sevilla won consecutive matches.

Also on Saturday, Athletic Bilbao repeated its favorite trick of scoring at the death to deny Málaga a deserved and much-needed victory at La Rosaleda. A finely balanced deadlock was broken in the 79th minute by Málaga's marquee signing Martín Demichelis, on loan from Bayern Munich, but Javi Martínez struck on the final whistle to deny Manuel Pellegrini's side a third home win of the season.

Other results: Mallorca 4-1 Almería; Osasuna 0-0 Getafe; Espanyol 4-0 Zaragoza; Racing 1-1 Sporting.