MADRID: La Liga leaders Barcelona moved closer to retaining their crown with a lacklustre 2-0 away win over 10-man Real Betis thanks to second-half goals from Ivan Rakitic and Luis Suarez on Saturday.

On a day of high tension when all three title contenders were at one point top of the table, Antoine Griezmann came off the bench to score the winner in Atletico Madrid’s 1-0 win over Rayo Vallecano to remain behind Barca solely due to their inferior head-to-head record with both having 85 points each.

Real Madrid defeated Real Sociedad 1-0 and remain just a point behind the leaders in third with two rounds to go.

Barca need to win their two remaining games at home to Espanyol and away to Granada to secure their second consecutive title and were given a huge helping hand by Betis despite an unconvincing performance.

Betis had centre-back Heiko Westermann sent off in the 35th minute for a second booking and Rakitic pounced on a defensive mishap to put Barca five minutes after the break at the Benito Villamarin Stadium in Seville.

Suarez then scored his 35th goal of the La Liga season to finish Betis off in the 81st.

Barca manager Luis Enrique reacted angrily to suggestions his team had underperformed against Betis.

“What’s the problem, if you don’t win 8-0 does it not count?” he told a news conference.” “This is a very competitive league with three teams fighting for the title. We never said it was going to be easy.

“Looking at the results I don’t think any of the three teams are going to slip up and it’s in our own hands. We need to concentrate on ourselves, be the best in attack and defence and resolve the game with the belief we have shown today.”

SEVEN CHANGES

In Madrid, Atletico won despite playing with only four players from the starting line-up that defeated Bayern Munich 1-0 in the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals on Wednesday at the Vicente Calderon Stadium.

Coach Diego Simeone, serving a three-game suspension for throwing a second ball onto the field in the previous league round, rested most of the regular starters on Saturday ahead of the return game in Germany on Tuesday.

However, Atletico’s youngsters struggled for the opening 55 minutes until Griez­mann rode to the rescue.

The France striker pounced on a loose ball on the edge of the area and, with his next touch, smashed it high into the net past Juan Carlos, his first goal in five games in all competitions.

And despite a late Rayo onslaught, Atletico held out to record their 34th clean sheet of the season.

“Rayo made things difficult for us,” Griezmann told Movistar+. “The players who started lacked rhythm, which was normal, they hadn’t played in a long time. But we were able to improve and got the win.

“Now we need to rest. We have a great game to come on Tuesday and we’ll try to get a good result there to go through to the final.”

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2016