Madrid, Oct 20 (IANS): FC Barcelona's Lionel Messi and Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo both scored in the Spanish Liga victories of their respective teams this weekend in a perfect warm-up for the Oct 25 'Clasico' between the two traditional rivals.
Messi took a step closer to becoming the all-time Spanish football league top scorer as he netted once in a 3-0 win at home to Eibar while Ronaldo scored his 14th and 15th league goals to steer Real Madrid to an easy 5-0 win away to Levante, reports Xinhua.
For 59 minutes Eibar had threatened to cause a massive upset as they hung on to a 0-0 score but Xavi Hernandez opened the scoring for Barcelona after good movement off the ball on the hour mark Saturday.
Neymar scored the second with a right foot volley after 70 minutes and Messi netted a left foot shot two minutes later to score his 250th league goal, one behind the decades-old record set by Telmo Zarra.
With the 'Clasico' away to Real Madrid Oct 25, the stage is set perfectly for the Argentine, who was also celebrating the 10th anniversary of his debut, to make history.
Barcelona's arch-rivals, meanwhile, maintained their impressive form as Ronaldo (twice), Javier Hernandez, James Rodriguez and Isco got their names on the scoresheet against a side that managed just one effort on target in the game.
Defending champions Atletico Madrid got their season back on track after a heavy defeat in Valencia with goals from Tiago Cardoso and Mario Suarez in a 2-0 win at home to Espanyol Sunday.
Sevilla moved to the second place in the table after Valencia crashed to a shock 0-3 defeat away to struggling Deportivo la Coruna. Gaya scored an own goal, before Lucas Perez and Toche sealed the win for Deportivo, who climbed out of the bottom three position.
Sevilla's duo of Carlos Bacca and Kevin Gameiro both hit the target as Unai Emery's side won 2-0 away to Elche to move behind leaders Barcelona.
Villarreal also continued to climb the table after two goals from Uche gave them a 2-0 home win against Almeria.
Athletic Club Bilbao struggled to a 1-1 draw at home to Celta Vigo. Athletic took the lead when Aritz Aduriz scored from a sixth minute penalty, but Celta dominated the second half and deservedly took a point when Nolito equalised 17 minutes from the end.
Cordoba remain without a win after losing 1-2 at home to Malaga. Samu and Nordin Amrabat put Malaga 2-0 up before half-time and Nabil Ghilas' 94th minute goal for the home side came too late to make any difference.
Manucho scored a last minute goal to give Rayo Vallecano 1-0 win away to Granada Friday.