La Liga - Round-Up: Barca stay perfect

Eurosport - Sat, 03 Oct 19:19:00 2009

Barcelona overcame a stubborn Almeria side 1-0 at the Camp Nou following a wonder strike from Pedro Rodriguez Ledesma.

PEDRITO PEDRO FÚTBOL CLUB BARCELONA - 0

The home side dominated proceedings from the off and the only surprise was it took until the 31st minute to turn that dominance into a lead.

But the strike that set the champions on the road to victory was well worth the wait. Having collected a Maxwell pass, Pedro - in for the injured and out of form Thierry Henry - rolled his man before unleashing an unstoppable drive into the roof of the net.

Firmly on top, it seemed only a matter of time before Barca added to their lead, but a combination of dogged defending, profligacy and the assistant referee's flag conspired to keep the score at 1-0 going into the half-time interval.

The second half was a less one-sided affair - although Barca still dominated. Zlatan Ibrahimovic had the best effort of the half.

But Almeria could have stolen a draw at the death, only Pablo Platti was inches away from Guilherme's centre.

Atletico Madrid recorded their first league win of the season following a frantic 2-1 victory against Real Zaragoza at the Estadio Vicente Calderon.

The home side made a dream start when Jose Jurado reacted quickest to fire past Juan Pablo Carrizo from the edge of the box with only two minutes on the clock.

But Atletico have been suspect at the back all season and when Jorge Lopez broke the offside trap league, debutant David De Gea rushed off his line and conceded a penalty.

Having been booked, the 18-year-old picked himself up and pushed Marko Babic's weak effort wide of the goal.

The first half continued at a blistering pace, but the hosts saw their lead through to half-time.

The second half was played at a more leisurely pace until Antonio Lopez doubled his side's lead with a low free-kick from the edge of the area.

Zaragoza immediately went up the other end and won a dubious penalty - when Thomas Ujfalusi was adjudged to have hauled down Javier Arizmendi.

Substitute Ewerthon Henrique de Souza made no mistake and dispatched the kick into the bottom corner to set up a ferocious finish.

But the Atletico defence - the league's leakiest this season - held firm to claim all three points.

Diego Colotto scored a second-half header to give Deportivo Coruna a 1-0 win at promoted Tenerife and lift the Galician club to fourth.

The Argentine defender pounced when an Andres Guardado corner found its way through to him in the 61st minute and Depor held on to the lead despite late pressure from the home side.

Marcus Foley / Eurosport

Comment 1 - 4 of 4

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  1. the 3 points are the bottom line, though I have a­ feeling real madrid will drop some points tomorrow,­ looong live LordPep.

    From Noureddine R, on Sun 4 Oct 4:26AM
  2. average performance but the 3 points r alwayz­ welcome...hope real will stumble and lose 2 or 3 pnts­ tomorrow...perfect international break!

    From Abby, on Sat 3 Oct 11:39PM
  3. Visca el Barca!!!

    From damnsoldja, on Sat 3 Oct 10:41PM
  4. Pedros goal was amazingly good

    From Wongy, on Sat 3 Oct 10:12PM
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