The Euro Roundup: PSG record biggest ever home victory, Dortmund’s crucial win
By Matt Addison
All you need to know from the weekend of European football action, with wins for Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG and Borussia Dortmund.
All of Europe’s major leagues are now back underway following the conclusion of the winter breaks, and there were plenty of goals to discuss across the course of the weekend.
Borussia Dortmund needed to show their title credentials were serious when Bayern Munich cut the gap at the top of the Bundesliga to three points on Friday night, while PSG already have the Ligue 1 title wrapped up and could have some fun at the Parc de Princes.
Sevilla slip to fourth
Real Madrid picked up a big three points over the weekend as they moved ahead of Sevilla and into third position in the La Liga by beating Los Rojiblancos 2-0 at the Bernabeu.
Luka Modric and Casemiro were the goalscorers for Santi Solari’s side, who now look well on track to finish in the Champions League places, which was far from certain earlier this season.
Barcelona beat Leganes 3-1 at the Nou Camp, maintaining their five-point gap at the top and 10-point gap to Real Madrid.
Lionel Messi began the game on the bench but came on after an hour, just after Martin Braithwaite had cancelled out Ousmane Dembele’s opener.
At 1-1, Luis Suarez put the hosts ahead before Messi added a late strike to make it 3-1 and seal the victory.
Fifth-placed Alaves were hammered 4-0 by Getafe, who are now just a point behind them in sixth place. Earlier in the season, Alaves looked like challenging for a Champions League spot, but now both would be happy with a Europa League place.
Atletico Madrid comfortably saw off bottom side Huesca 0-3, while Villarreal picked up a point against Athletic Bilbao. Celta Vigo are still just a point above the drop zone having lost at home to Valencia.
The La Liga weekend concludes with Eibar hosting Espanyol on Monday night.
Serie A goal glut
Napoli closed the gap to Juventus to six points with a 2-1 win over Lazio, who had Francesco Acerbi sent off for a second yellow card with 20 minutes to go, when they were already losing the game.
Goals from Jose Callejon and Arkadiusz Milik in the first half were sufficient to get Napoli over the line, despite Lorenzo Insigne being absent for Carlo Ancelotti’s men.
Juventus will face Chievo on Monday night at the Allianz Arena where they will be confident of restoring their nine-point lead.
Elsewhere in Italy, there were lots of goals, with Frosinone beaten at home to Atalanta by five goals to nil, and Fiorentina playing out an entertaining 3-3 draw with Sampdoria.
Roma beat Torino 3-2 despite the hosts squandering a 2-0 lead, only for Stephan El Shaarawy to put them in front again with just over 15 minutes of normal time remaining.
Parma beat Udinese 2-1, Cagliari drew 2-2 with Empoli and the only goalless draw was between Inter and Sassuolo.
PSG hit nine
Both Neymar and Kylian Mbappe scored hat-tricks as PSG demolished Guincamp 9-0 at the Parc de Princes. It was only 3-0 at halftime but PSG turned on the style in the second half and exerted their dominance.
That was PSG’s biggest ever Parc de Princes win, beating last season’s 8-0 victory over Dijon, but was a goal short of their previous overall record win, which was a 10-0 win away at Cote Chaude in the cup and came 25 years ago.
That result should have been good news for Monaco, who are just above Guincamp in the table and well and truly involved in a relegation scrap, but Thierry Henry’s side were beaten 5-1 at home to fifth-placed Strasbourg.
New signing Naldo was sent off after just seven minutes, and by the time Strasbourg’s Stefan Mitrovic was shown a red card in minute 69, the game was already over.
The only solace for Henry was that Dijon, the third-bottom side, were also beaten, against Bordeaux.
A Morgan Sanson goal was enough to earn Marseille a 1-0 victory at Caen, while Moussa Dembele headed home in the fifth minute of added time for Lyon to beat local rivals Saint-Etienne at the death.
Second-placed Lille had already overcome Amiens on Friday night, with Rafael Leao and Xeka scoring their goals in a 2-1 win.
Dortmund show title mettle
The weekend of German football began with an impressive 3-1 victory for Bayern Munich at Hoffenheim, as Leon Goretzka netted twice and Robert Lewandowski added a late third.
League leaders Borussia Dortmund had to respond the following day, and did so, beating RB Leipzig 0-1 with Axel Witsel scoring the decisive goal.
The lead at the top of the table had been momentarily cut to three points, but Dortmund held their nerve by overcoming a tricky away game and emerging with a win.
Elsewhere, Borussia Monchengladbach capitalized on fourth-placed Leipzig’s defeat by beating Bayer Leverkusen 0-1 and moving five points ahead of Ralf Rangnick’s team.
All of the bottom four sides — Nurnberg, Hannover, Stuttgart and Augsburg — lost, to Hertha Berlin, Werder Bremen, Mainz and Fortuna Dusseldorf, while Daniel Caligiuri scored a late winner for Schalke against Wolfsburg, a hitch in the latter’s pursuit of European soccer next season.