Spain's La Liga returns to action this weekend with a full slate of matches on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Villarreal hosted Granada on Friday night to kick off the weekend, with nine more matches set to follow throughout the weekend. In these slides, we recap all the scores from all the games.
No disrespect to either Real Valladolid, or Barcelona’s next opposition after the international break, Osasuna, but that streak should extend to nine over the coming weeks, even if Barça have been somewhat ravaged by injuries. Lionel Messi is sidelined, as are regular starters Javier Mascherano, Jordi Alba and club captain Carles Puyol – and the squad that was tipped to be "too thin" to deal with an injury crisis is coping admirably.
The defense that supposedly needed desperate reinforcements has conceded just once in its last five matches and kept a staggering four clean sheets in its last four away fixtures; in fact, pretty much everything is going according to plan for Gerardo Martino. His rotation policy has been well-received and if the past few weeks are any indication, Martino might etch his name into the record books sooner rather than later.
Barcelona (4-3-3): Valdés; Alves, Piqué, Bartra, Montoya; Busquets, Xavi, Roberto; Alexis, Fàbregas, Neymar
Valladolid (4-2-3-1): Marino; Rukavina, Rueda, Valiente, Pena; Baraja, Rossi; Ebert, Osorio, Omar; Guerra
