By DPA
Madrid : Mallorca and Atletico Madrid now share sixth place in Spain after scoring comfortable wins in their respective matches in Primera Liga.
Mallorca won 2-0 at Recreativo Huelva, and Atletico thrashed under-performing Zaragoza 4-0 at home Sunday. These results leave both teams with 14 points from eight games, two points behind fifth-placed Espanyol, who on Saturday beat leaders Real Madrid 2-1.
In fourth place on 17 points are stuttering Barcelona, who were beaten 3-1 Saturday by lively Villarreal.
Villarreal now share second place with Valencia — who won 4-2 Saturday in La Coruna — both on 18 points. Real are just one point ahead of the east coast pair after their defeat against Espanyol.
Atletico turned in their best performance so far to hammer Zaragoza, who are quickly turning into the letdown of the season after spending heavily in summer.
South Americans Diego Forlan and Maxi Rodriguez were the stars in a delighted Estadio Calderon.
Luis Garcia shot Atletico ahead after just 10 minutes, having been put through by Forlan. In the 34th minute, Maxi set up Forlan to make it 2-0 with a clever lob.
On the hour, Maxi was pulled down in the box by Sergio Fernandez. The Argentine forward got up and put away the spot-kick.
With the Zaragoza defence shipping water, Maxi wrongly had a goal disallowed, then made it 4-0 right after the end after being played through by Luis Garcia.
Atleti President Enrique Cerezo said: “We should all be happy tonight. We have seen a great match and some really good goals.”
Zaragoza’s Pablo Aimar moaned: “every time they attacked us, we let them score another goal.”
Earlier Sunday, Mallorca won in Huelva with goals from striker Daniel Guiza and supersub Tuni.
Sunday also saw an important away win for Athletic Bilbao, who won 2-1 in Valladolid with two early goals from Aritz Aduriz.
This crucial win takes Bilbao up to 13th but leaves Valladolid second from bottom with just five points.
The only team below Valladolid is Levante, who have just one point after Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at home to Sevilla. New coach Giovanni De Biasi will have to pull off a footballing miracle to save hapless Levante.
Also Sunday, newly promoted Almeria moved up to ninth with a 2-0 win over Osasuna, while Getafe beat Murcia by the same score and Racing Santander came from behind to battle out a 1-1 draw at Betis.