Sports

Barca maintains perfect start

September 24, 2017
Barcelona’s Luis Suarez (R) celebrates scoring their third goal against Girona during their Spanish league football match in Girona Saturday. — Reuters
Barcelona’s Luis Suarez (R) celebrates scoring their third goal against Girona during their Spanish league football match in Girona Saturday. — Reuters

MADRID — Barcelona opened up a four-point gap at the top of La Liga, maintaining its 100 percent start as it cruised to a 3-0 victory at Catalan rival Girona Saturday.

An own goal either side of the break and a Luis Suarez strike in his 100th league appearance for the club 21 minutes from the end were enough for Ernesto Valverde’s team to secure the points in the first-ever league meeting between the sides.

Having seen Atletico defeat Sevilla 2-0 to move into second place and a Dani Ceballos double help an unconvincing Real to sneak past bottom-of-the-table Alaves 2-1 earlier on, Barca made light work of its opponents, even if two of their goals were fortunate.

“There was pressure on us given the results in the other games and the atmosphere here today,” Valverde said. “It’s a derby, a great atmosphere and we needed to play with our heads as well as our hearts.

“We needed to combat Girona’s enthusiasm and we got the job done. Of course, I’m delighted with how things are going — I’m not going to complain when we win. I’ll do that when things aren’t going well.”

Dybala scores again

Paulo Dybala continued his astonishing start to the season as he netted twice to help Juventus beat 10-man Torino 4-0 in a Serie A derby Saturday.

Miralem Pjanic and Alex Sandro scored the others after Torino midfielder Daniele Baselli was sent off after 24 minutes of the Derby della Mole.

Dybala took his tally to 10 goals in the opening six league matches, just one less than he scored in the whole of the last campaign.

Juventus stayed perfect in Serie A, as did Napoli which won at Spal 3-2 earlier.

Roma, which has played a match less, remained six points behind after beating Udinese 3-1.

Dortmund crushes Gladbach

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored a hat trick and Maximilian Philipp struck twice as Borussia Dortmund demolished Borussia Moenchengladbach 6-1 Saturday to stay top of the Bundesliga with its fifth win in six matches.

The Gabon international took his league tally to eight goals from six matches as Dortmund enjoyed a flawless dress rehearsal for next week’s Champions League group match against Real Madrid.

The Ruhr valley club now has the best goal difference after six matches in Bundesliga history with 19 goals scored and one conceded and has quickly established itself as credible title contender.

“We played really well with the ball and off the ball,” Dortmund coach Peter Bosz told reporters.

“It was a team effort above all. I can only pay a compliment to my team with this performance coming only three days after Hamburg (Dortmund’s midweek Bundesliga win).”

Dortmund has 16 points, three more than third-placed Bayern Munich, which wasted a two-goal lead Friday to draw 2-2 against VfL Wolfsburg.

Hoffenheim beat Schalke 04 2-0 with a goal in each half on Saturday to move into second place on 14 with their fourth win in six matches.

RB Leipzig, last season’s runners-up, beat Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 for its first win in three matches and climbed to sixth on 10 points. — Agencies


September 24, 2017
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