LONDON, Sept 23: Fresh from their midweek Champions League exploits, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus recorded identical 2-0 victories to maintain their supremacy in their respective domestic leagues on Saturday.
Elsewhere, Zlatan Ibrahimovic kept his incredible scoring record for Paris Saint-Germain going as he led his side to yet another victory.But it is one of the Swede’s former clubs who are setting the pace in Spain.
Barca maintained their perfect start to La Liga while opening a provisional 11-point gap over defending champions and bitter rivals Real Madrid when they overcame Granada at the Nou Camp.
Xavi Hernandez crashed a shot into the top corner three minutes from the end and Lionel Messi, who scored a late brace on Wednesday in the Catalans’ 3-2 victory in their Champions League opener against Spartak Moscow, forced a stoppage-time own goal to give Barca a maximum 15 points from their opening five games.
“It was nice to score the goal which practically gave us the win. I just saw the keeper slightly off his line and I hit it with the outside of my boot,” said Xavi. “It was a difficult game as we’ve had before with teams which defend deeply and reduce the space but when you do score everything changes and that was the case here.”
Bayern, fresh from their opening 2-1 Champions League win over Valencia on Wednesday, also maintained their winning roll with a 2-0 win at Schalke 04 to clinch a fourth win in four matches in the Bundesliga.
Toni Kroos, who was on the score-sheet against Valencia, found the target after 55 minutes with a right-foot drive before Thomas Mueller scored three minutes later as Bayern reclaimed top spot on goal difference from Eintracht Frankfurt, who also have a perfect 12 points.
Schalke, who showed none of the attacking flair that earned them a 2-1 win at Olympiakos in the Champions League, imploded following the quick-fire goals and failed to threaten the Bayern goal.
“We saw a very intense match from both teams and Schalke stood up very well especially in the first-half,” said Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes. “We showed our class in the second half, dominated and deserved to win.”
Meanwhile, German champions Borussia Dortmund’s 31-match unbeaten run was ended in a 3-2 loss to Hamburger SV for whom South Korea’s Son Heung-Min scored twice. Dortmund are five points behind Bayern in fourth place.
Italian champions Juve underlined their Serie A title credentials with a fourth straight win thanks to two second-half goals from Champions League hero Fabio Quagliarella, including a stunning scissor-kick strike, in a 2-0 win over Chievo Verona.
After rescuing the Bianconeri when he came off the bench to score the equaliser against Chelsea in the Champions League on Wednesday, the Italy international broke the deadlock with a stunning strike just past the hour and added a second goal five minutes later to send Juve three points clear at the top.
“This has been perhaps the best week of my career, to score three goals in two games in not easy to do,” said Quagliarella. “For me tonight was the game of my life.”
Juve’s former striker Ibrahimovic, meanwhile, scored twice and laid on another as PSG outclassed Bastia 4-0 to climb to third in Ligue 1 with 12 points from six games.
Ibrahimovic, who scored in PSG’s 4-1 thrashing of Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League on Tuesday and has seven league goals in five games, also set up the first goal for Jeremy Menez before being involved in the build-up to PSG’s other goal, scored by Blaise Matuidi.
“It was 4-0 — but not easy,” he said. “People were saying it was easy after we beat Kiev in midweek. But it wasn’t. You still have to go out there and do things on the pitch. We were playing a good team.”—Agencies