MADRID, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- FC Barcelona beat Real Madrid in the Spanish Supercup final in Saudi Arabia, while in Spain the battle to avoid relegation is closer than ever. Here are some things we learned this weekend in La Liga (and the Super Cup).
1. Barcelona retains Super Cup in Jeddah
Raphinha was the hero as FC Barcelona beat Real Madrid 3-2 in an exciting Super Cup final where Barcelona had the edge of its eternal rival. Hansi Flick's side was more pro-active than Real Madrid, who sat back and tried to hurt Barcelona on the break.
To be fair to Real Madrid, Gonzalo and the impressive Vinicius both had good chances before opening the scoring, but it wasn't until the closing minutes that Real Madrid took the game to Barcelona and when they did they exposed weakness in the Barcelona defense.
Maybe if Madrid had been more ambitious things may have ended differently.
2. Relegation battle traffic jam
The Super Cup allowed focus in Spain to turn to the battle to avoid relegation this weekend, and it is shaping up to be closer than ever after the bottom three sides (Levante, Oviedo and Valencia) all claimed points to move closer to the pack of clubs above them.
Valencia currently occupies the last relegation spot with 17 points, but there are only five points between it and Rayo Vallecano who sit in 10th place in the table.
With such a traffic-jam of teams, two wins can make a huge difference and so can two defeats.
3. Big step forward for Girona
Vladislav Vanat scored the only goal of the game on Saturday to lift Girona further clear of the bottom three with a 1-0 win at home to an Osasuna side that suffers from travel sickness with eight defeats in 10 away games.
Vanat scored a neat backheel, but coach Michel Sanchez will be delighted with the commitment of all his players, especially wingers Bryan Gil and Viktor Tsyhankov, who both ran themselves into the ground in attack and helped in defense.
Until last weekend Girona had spent all season in the bottom three, but the club has kept faith in Michel, while Saturday's display also showed the players are behind him and that is very good news for the rest of the season.
4. Worrying times at Getafe
Although Getafe had a good start to the season things are starting to go wrong at the Madrid-based club with just one win from its last eight league games that has seen it drop to four points above the relegation zone.
Financial fair play issues badly affected summer preparations and now that injuries are starting to bite (with top scorer Borja Mayoral out for several months) those financial issues and threaten to leave coach Pepe Bordalas with a very short squad.
Bordalas had four B-team players in the squad for Friday's defeat to Real Sociedad and his side is badly lacking the quality it needs for a difficult second half to the season. Endtem
