Barcelona returned to the top of the La Liga table with a comfortable 4-0 home victory over 10-man Real Sociedad on Sunday.
Barça’s sixth straight league win moved them into first place with 57 points from 26 games, one ahead of Atlético Madrid. Real Madrid are third with 54 points after a 2-1 defeat at Real Betis on Saturday.
Sociedad went down to 10 men in the 17th minute when the defender Aritz Elustondo was sent off for fouling Dani Olmo and Barcelona quickly made their advantage count as Gerard Martín and Marc Casadó both scored their first professional goals. Barcelona kept up the pressure after the interval and created chance after chance, wrapping up the win with second-half strikes from Ronald Araújo and Robert Lewandowski.
“We’re happy about the way we played. It was important to win today, to go first in the table. We’re happy and we feel that we’re working really well,” said Araújo.
In Serie A a penalty in added time earned Lazio a 2-1 win against Milan at the San Siro, where the home side had equalised despite going down to 10 men and endured a hostile atmosphere from their own fans protesting against the club owners.
The Milan ultras had left their sector empty until the 15th minute in protest, but arrived in time to see Mattia Zaccagni put Lazio ahead in the 28th minute and the home side were loudly booed off at the break. Milan went down to 10 men in the 67th minute with Strahinja Pavlovic sent off but managed to level through a Samuele Chukwueze header five minutes from time, before Pedro converted from the spot late on.
Alexandre Lacazette made up for giving away an early penalty by scoring twice as Lyon beat Brest 2-1 in Ligue 1 on Sunday. The Lyon coach, Paulo Fonseca, was sent off seven minutes into stoppage time for an angry reaction to a potential Brest penalty for handball.
After being given a red card, an irate Fonseca confronted the referee, Benoît Millot, and leaned in very close to his face before being pushed away by the Lyon captain, Corentin Tolisso. Fonseca then tried to confront the referee a second time and was restrained by a couple of Lyon players. The Portuguese coach could face a lengthy suspension and he apologised afterwards. The handball decision then went to a video replay and the penalty was not given.
