Barcelona marched on towards another La Liga title with a 6-1 rout of Getafe, with Lionel Messi getting in on the scoresheet yet again, as Cristiano Ronaldo warmed up, to face his old club Manchester United, in style by netting a hat-trick for Real Madrid.
Atletico Madrid threw away the chance to keep the gap at the top of the table to nine points, losing 2-1 at Rayo Vallecano, which means Barcelona now lead the Spanish league by a massive 12 points from their nearest rivals. Real Madrid are 16 points behind.
Barcelona assistant coach Jordi Roura, standing in for Tito Vilanova, made quite a few changes, resting the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Pedro and Sergio Busquests, while Xavi Hernandez was out through injury.
That meant the likes of David Villa, Thiago Alcantara and Alexis Sanchez were given rare starts, and they made full use of that opportunity.
"The players were at an extraordinary level," Roura said. "They were intense from the first minute."
Sanchez opened the scoring in the sixth minute, before Messi grabbed his staggering 35th goal of the campaign seven minutes later. David Villa, Cristian Tello, Andres Iniesta and Gerard Pique scored four second half goals to give Barca another comfortable victory.
"It's good that we all contributed, but in the end the best thing is that the team won and that we played well," Iniesta said after the match.
"We have a very complete team," Pique added. "A few players that don't usually enjoy a lot of minutes got to play and they proved that they are at a good level. This gives us tranquility.
"We're lucky that we get to enjoy Andres, and we have to take advantage of the fact that he plays for Barca."
Earlier, Ronaldo was the star man yet again as Real put behind them some of the recent disappointing results with a 4-1 win over Sevilla.
Ronaldo had a hand in all four of Real's goals, setting up Karim Benzema for the opener, before netting three of them himself to give his side a crushing win.
With the treble, Ronaldo moved to the sixth on the all-time goalscorers list for Real, equal with Gento on 182 goals. The Portuguese, who reached the mark in just 179 games, a remarkable strike rate of over a goal per game, now is 26 behind fifth-placed Hugo Sanchez.
"He has had that admiration for a long time and he knows how important he is for the team," Real assistant coach Aitor Karanka said. "It is important that a player like Cristiano is at this level."
Results: Barcelona 6-1 Getafe; Athletic Bilbao 0-4 Espanyol; Real Zaragoza 1-2 Real Sociedad; Rayo Vallecano 2-1 Atletico Madrid; Celta Vigo 0-1 Valencia; Real Madrid 4-1 Sevilla; Levante 1-2 Malaga; Mallorca 1-1 Osasuna; Deportivo 0-3 Granada.
