In a week dominated by the semi-finals of the Champions League, James Richardson delves through the highlights of the European press reaction to the results

The Real Madrid and Barcelona totems have pushed each other on like a footballing Annie Oakley and Frank Butler, but missing from the spot was not a step they intended to take together

Barcelona and Real Madrid, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The world’s two biggest clubs and the world’s two best players came together after all; they just will not come together in Munich as so many anticipated. In 24 hours, the Spanish dream of a European Cup final all of their own dissolved and so did the false national solidarity, the pretence that they were supporting each other. The approaches of Madrid and Barcelona were not the same, nor were their fortunes, but there was something shared about their experience and their fate. The pain is mutual and so is the comfort: we are out but so are they.

There were other parallels but it all crystallised in the penalties taken by the men who have come to symbolise their clubs. Messi and Ronaldo have matched each other stride for stride for so long this season, pushing each other on like a kind of footballing Annie Oakley and Frank Butler, but missing from the spot was not a step they intended to take together. On the morning after Barcelona-Chelsea, the newspaper Marca ran photos of the two men under the headline, directed at the Portuguese: “Don’t you fail [like Messi].” He did.

European elimination has made strange bedfellows. In the aftermath of his team’s penalty shootout defeat to Bayern Munich, José Mourinho’s discourse focused on Barcelona. Nothing unusual there – he has all too often turned attention on to his rivals – except that for the first time he spoke as if they were in it together: the talk of Barcelona as beneficiaries was replaced by a monologue in which both were victims. By excusing Barcelona’s absence in the final, Mourinho excused Madrid’s. By defending Messi, he defended Ronaldo. The shield behind which he defended himself and his team was Barcelona.

That served to avoid other questions. “We maybe made the mistake of protecting the lead at 2-0,” Iker Casillas, the goalkeeper and captain, said. Once Bayern got their goal, levelling the score and putting them in a position where another away goal would have had a huge value, Madrid’s inhibition grew. Madrid retreated; Bayern advanced. If caution was understandable, it may also have been costly. Although penalties are, in Casillas’s words, “a lottery”, Madrid’s elimination was not solely misfortune. Jupp Heynckes said: “If you look at the 120 minutes, we deserve to be in the final.” Despite Madrid’s blistering start here, it was hard to disagree with the Bayern Munich coach. His team had 17 shots, four more than Madrid.

The narrative of this match contrasted with that of the one at the Camp Nou but Mourinho drew parallels that were suggestive of parity. There was certainly something in it. “The best footballers miss penalties the same way that the best tennis players don’t always win their match points. Ronaldo missed a penalty just as Messi missed a decisive penalty. People act like they are Superman, but Superman is a film,” he said, adding for emphasis: “Just a film.”

Mourinho added: “People criticise them but those same people climb two flights of stairs and they’re dead. These people run like beasts and work under incredible pressure. We are at the limits here. The Champions League final will be played by the team who are fifth [in fact sixth] in England and the team who are 10 [in fact eight] points off the top in Germany. They played with second teams last weekend whereas we played the most important game of the season [against Barcelona]. When I was in Italy I persuaded them to let teams playing on Tuesday in the Champions League play their league game on Friday. But I do not have that power here.”

That measure would not have benefited Madrid, who played on Wednesday, but it might have benefited Barcelona – they had a day’s less rest going into the clásico and a day’s less coming out of it too. The size of Madrid’s squad mitigates the impact but fatigue certainly may have played a part. It is a fatigue, Casillas noted, that is mental as much as physical. The margins, after all, are fine and the pressure intense. There is also an essential and very basic truth that is often overlooked in analysing why teams lose: they face powerful opponents and winning is not easy. No team can emerge victorious from every game and in every competition. Breaking down a side that defends is not simple; beating Bayern is not either – this is an impressive side.

The Barça example supported Mourinho’s argument and there are those who have questioned the fixture list. If the dominance of the big two and the impossibility of winning the league title has liberated Spain’s other clubs from domestic obligations, facilitating their challenge in the Europa League, perhaps the opposite has been true when it comes to the Champions League. It is a factor to consider at least.

A clásico in the middle of two semi-final matches can hardly have helped. Just as the fact that the Copa del Rey final between Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao comes at the end of May when other national teams are already together can hardly help the selección this summer. Spanish football is complicit in Spanish football not having the European Cup final it so desired. But it is certainly not the only culprit.

The Real Madrid star features as a clown, a gladiator and his rotund namesake

Their hope lasted two minutes and nineteen seconds. Just when Barcelona thought there was a chance they might rescue the La Liga title, just as this stadium erupted into noise, just as the faith that had deserted them flooded back, Cristiano Ronaldo tore it all out of their hands again. Alexis Sánchez had given Barcelona a goal and a lifeline with an equaliser midway through the second half, levelling the scores after Sami Khedira had put Madrid ahead in the first half. But 139 seconds later Ronaldo brilliantly stepped around Víctor Valdés to make the return of the title from the Camp Nou to the Bernabéu all but certain.

Pep Guardiola had insisted before this latest clásico that the equation was simple: lose or draw and Real Madrid would be league champions. The trophy is now on its way from Catalonia to Castille. Seven points separate these sides with only four matches remaining. There could yet be a final showdown should they both make it to the Champions League final in Munich, but Madrid were the victors here. Madrid and José Mourinho: this should be the Special One’s seventh league title, spread across four different countries.

Madrid’s 2-1 win almost certainly puts an end to the Barcelona’s title pursuit. Trailing by 10 points only a few weeks ago, Barça, had cut the lead to four. This was the game, they said, in which it would be down to one. If that was presumptuous, there was logic to it: under Mourinho Madrid had won only one of 10 clásicos.

It was always the Catalans who were on the edge of the abyss and in the end they fell into it here. When, momentarily, it looked like they might not, Ronaldo pushed them over the edge with his 42nd goal of the season. Few deserve the title like he does. Always the first outlet, invariably the source of greatest danger, Ronaldo was involved in Madrid’s opener after 15 minutes. Until then, Barcelona had struggled to reach their front three. Cristian Tello, given his third start of the season out on the left touchline, was isolated. Madrid’s wide men were too, but they lay in wait for the quick ball to release them. Soon, it came. Ronaldo dashed ahead of Sergio Busquets on the left and cut across him, with space opening up ahead and the Barcelona midfielder immediately behind. The Portuguese went down and from the swinging free-kick came a deflected Angel di María shot. From the resulting corner came a goal.

Valdés misjudged the flight of the corner, which was deep towards the far post. Pepe leapt above Adriano and headed down. Valdés, by then backtracking, made the save but the ball dropped a couple of yards out. Carles Puyol got his body between the ball and the goalline, apparently trying to block Madrid’s path to it rather than clearing it himself, and Khedira reached round to challenge him, knocking it in. This was the first time that Madrid had scored here in the league since late 2007. It was also Madrid’s 108th league goal of the season – a new record.

Barcelona’s difficulties multiplied, so did the number of times they gave the ball away. Andrés Iniesta in particular looked out of place and off the pace. Madrid put pressure on up to a point and then waited, stepping out opportunely to seek the offside. Meanwhile, Xabi Alonso was always close to Lionel Messi. And if Madrid saw little of the ball, Barcelona did little with it. Rarely did they find the wide men. Twice Tello got the ball and attacked before the break, engaging Alvaro Arbeloa in straight sprints. The Madrid defender was his equal on both occasions. Inside, Barcelona rarely found the space to deliver a telling pass.

Messi did spring the trap, leaving Xavi Hernández one on one with Iker Casillas in the 26th minute, but he wasted the chance. Barcelona appeared impotent; when Madrid counter-attacked, Barcelona appeared vulnerable. As if to prove that point, Ronaldo ran the ball into the net seven minutes into the second half. He was offside. But only just.

The two best chances of the opening minutes of the second period fell to Tello. First he dashed in from the left but scuffed his shot from Iniesta’s pass. Then, running into the same area and supplied by Thiago, he blasted the ball over from eight yards out. Barcelona were starting to exert pressure; Madrid were limited to resisting. The problem for Barcelona was the pressure exerted on them by the clock. It ticked down, taking their title chances with it. It showed 20 minutes left when they got the breakthrough. Now there was time. Faith too. Suddenly, the noise was deafening; they were going to do it after all.

Messi dashed through and found Iniesta, whose back heel reached Tello. In much the same position from which he had wasted two earlier chances, he concentrated on keeping the ball on target. Casillas saved, the ball fell to Adriano, Casillas saved again and Sánchez reached out to bundle the ball over the line. The Chilean had barely been on the pitch two minutes, having replaced Xavi. The belief, though, would last about as long. Mesut Ozil played the pass. And in a flash, Ronaldo was there, delivering the league to Madrid four years on.

Real Madrid stretched their advantage over Barcelona to seven points after Cristiano Ronaldo set a La Liga scoring record of 41 goals in a 3-1 comeback victory at home to lowly Sporting Gijón on Saturday.

Ronaldo’s 74th-minute header, which fired Madrid ahead after a Miguel De Las Cuevas penalty for Gijón and Gonzalo Higuaín’s equaliser before half-time, broke the record that he set last season and put him two ahead of the Barcelona forward Lionel Messi. However, Messi equalled Ronaldo’s mark with both goals in Barça’s 2-1 comeback win at Levante in the late kick‑off on Saturday.

An uninspired Madrid, with Karim Benzema and Angel di María on the bench and Xabi Alonso suspended, fell behind in the 30th minute when Sergio Ramos handled in the penalty area and De Las Cuevas comfortably beat Iker Casillas from the spot.

The Argentina forward Higuaín equalised seven minutes later when he rose unmarked to nod a Ramos cross past Juan Pablo, before Ronaldo settled the home side’s nerves and Benzema added a third from Mesut Ozil’s assist eight minutes from time.

The Gijon defender Roberto Canella received a second yellow card and was sent off in the 79th minute as the Gijón’s hopes of avoiding relegation were dealt a further blow. They lie 19th on 28 points, three ahead of the bottom side Racing Santander and level with Real Zaragoza, who both play on Sunday.

James is back with another helping of top footballing news from across the Continent

The he-man scored his 15th hat-trick in Real colours to suppress the reverie of Atlético fans who dared to believe

For one brief ecstatic moment, they believed. The noise rose and so did their arms, scarves twirling round wrists. The Vicente Calderón shook. The corrugated iron that stood between the fans and the road a hundred feet below didn’t look stable, but they didn’t care as they bounced off it. Atlético Madrid weren’t actually winning but it didn’t matter. This was a glorious draw; Radamel Falcao’s header made it 1-1 and no matter how much their coach had insisted that only the mediocre wanted to win this game to screw Real Madrid, they wanted to screw Real Madrid. So very, very badly. Being an Atlético means being antimadridista they had cut Madrid’s lead at the top of the table to two points. Three weeks ago, it was 10. Besides, they were still attacking. They could sense another one coming, feel it. This was going to be a great night.

The trouble is, this was also Atlético. And that … that was barely human. A beast. A supernatural force. Whatever it was, there was no stopping it.

They should have known better. This was a Madrid derby; they should know what happens by now. Find an old match report and hit the keys: Ctrl C, Ctrl V. Football’s Truman Burbank had booked himself into the Cherry Street Bed and Breakfast for another night. Atlético Madrid have not beaten Real Madrid this century. Their last win came in 1999, when Thibaut Courtois, their goalkeeper, was seven and the peseta was still legal tender. An Atlético win belongs to another century and another age – an age, claimed El Mundo Deportivo, when the people who went to Eurovision were actually singers. It’s a theory ever-so-slightly undermined by the fact that Dana International was the defending champion, but you get the point. More than 50 teams have beaten Real Madrid since 1999; Atlético are not one of them.

Some thought things would be different with the new coach Diego Simeone – captain of the double-winning team, heart and soul of the club. But things aren’t particularly different with Simeone: while the sensation has changed, the intensity too, results are no better than under Gregorio Manzano. There’s something about Atlético now that conjured up the Simpsons scene when Homer changes his name. “From now on,” he tells Bart, “there are three ways of doing things: the right way, the wrong way and the Max Power way.” “Isn’t that the wrong way?” Bart asks, to which Homer replies: “Yes. But faster.” Not that it is Simeone’s fault: 16 different managers have coached the team since the last win against Madrid and none have succeeded. The Madrid derby is cursed. Atlético are.

No matter what happened, something always happened. Atlético have suffered early goals and late ones, bad luck and worse luck. Most of all they have suffered from Miguel-Angel Gil Marín and Enrique Cerezo. And from the crushing weight of reality: they are 40 points behind their city neighbours. And on Wednesday night they suffered something special. Something always happens; on Wednesday night, he happened. There is a Spanish phrase that identifies something, or someone, by saying: “it has a name and a surname”. He has a two names and a surname that never gets used – Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro – but rarely has the phrase been more applicable. Atlético Madrid’s problem had two names and no surname: Cristiano and Ronaldo.

To start with, Ronaldo was on the floor more than he was on his feet. And, no, that is not flippant, it is a fact: in the opening three minutes, he was down three times. Atlético seemed to have decided to double up on him, Luis Perea coming across to join Juanfran in stopping him. He got knocked down but he got up again – after a little while sitting there shaking his head – and they were never going to keep him down. He had already scored a brilliant 36-yard free-kick to give Real Madrid the lead, employing that unique narrow run-up, his body almost folded in on itself, hitting the ball with his laces. Then he belted in the second from the top corner of the penalty area.

The word breathtaking has become a cliche. But this actually was breathtaking. Unexpected and devastating. You could almost hear the air rushing out of the lungs of the 55,000 fans, deflating like the auto pilot in Airplane, songs stuck in their throats, unable to escape. Deflating, in fact, like the ball seemed to on the first goal, dipping and swishing from side to side, as if Ronaldo had hit it so hard that, halfway, it had suddenly burst and dropped.

Just when Atlético were pushing, just when they believed, whallop! It was all over. Thirteen minutes the joy had lasted, the belief. Thirteen minutes was how long it took for Ronaldo to end it; 13 minutes from Falcao leaping at one end to Ronaldo standing there at the other, rolling up his shorts and pointing at his thigh. A little over 13 minutes after that, he got his third from the penalty spot to complete his 15th hat-trick since joining Real Madrid. Yes, 15th. And then he provided the assist for José Callejón to get the fourth. When the final whistle went, he picked up the ball and stuffed it up his shirt. Another one.

Down in the car park leading out of the north end, Madrid’s players filed through serious, silent and in formation. At the other end of the passageway, Ronaldo was standing before the cameras grinning. “I’d like to thank my team-mates; without them I wouldn’t have got the goals,” he said before dashing through, stopping briefly to have his picture taken with an Atléti fan in a wheelchair, and on to the bus.

This time, he was wrong. Ronaldo might have got the goals without them. This time, he carried Madrid. He re-established the four-point lead at the top of the table and may still carry them to the league title. If not in play – Ronaldo is not the kind of footballer who controls the game – then certainly in that sense of constant, imminent danger. The brutal beauty of the way he plays. The sheer decisiveness. This is far too good a team to ever talk about a one-man show, but his impact is astonishing. Ronaldo is the Zumosol Cousin: the powerful, perfect specimen, all white teeth and physique, who steps up to rescue his little cousin. When he is flying, he can appear unstoppable, ubiquitous. As one columnist grandly put it: “He is not Cristiano, he is the whole of Christianity.”

Against Atlético, the goals came from nowhere. “Cristiano condemned us with his goals,” said Simeone. “Those goals did not fit the way the game was going but they were decisive. Goals are more important than ideas.”

He has condemned so many others. Atlético were one of only three teams against whom Ronaldo had not scored from goals other than penalties (the others were Barcelona and Tenerife). Now he has remedied that. And with a goal, with two goals, that were barely plausible. Overall, his figures are even more absurdly brilliant. You could argue that they belong to a different age but for one thing: they are better than the figures racked up in pretty much any age, ever. His three on Wednesday night were his 38th, 39th, and 40th of the season. It was his seventh hat-trick. It was also the first time a Madrid player had scored three at Atlético since Alfredo di Stéfano in 1952-53 and he became the first player to score 20 away goals in a season. Before last year, no one had ever exceeded 38 goals. Ronaldo has done it twice in a row. He has 138 goals in 136 games for Madrid, for goodness sake.

So he is cocky? So what? Why shouldn’t he be? It is all too easily forgotten that when he made his “rich, handsome and good at football” comment his tongue was wedged at least part of the way into his cheek, that he was right, and that it is that attitude, that self-worth, that has made him the player he is. Or that it is his teams that benefit. The sheer bloody-mindedness, the obsession, the ambition, is almost suffocating and supremely impressive: the drive and determination. The relentlessness of his dedication has proven successful. Ronaldo has more than earned the right to puff out his chest; puffing out his chest has earned him the right to puff it out some more. He hasn’t always played brilliantly, of course, but nor has he ever hidden. Back in the days when people wore black boots, the very few who wore coloured ones stood out a mile. White or blue, yellow or red, the verdict was always the same: you’d better be really bloody good.

Last night Ronaldo wore fuchsia.

Talking points

• Osasuna recovered and Raúl García did it again. Two more goals from him – the second a gorgeous lob – gave his side a 2-0 win over Espanyol which puts them back in a European place, two points behind Levante and four behind Málaga in the final Champions League slot.

• The fans chanted for Javier Clemente to leave and for the board to resign but ended up cheering a miraculous late winner from Gastón Sangoy that took Sporting off the bottom. For now at least: Racing play Mallorca on Thursday. Truth is, though, that the bottom three are likely to be the bottom three at the end of the season – Villarreal remain four points clear of the relegation zone and Granada, who drew 2-2 with Athletic, are eight points clear.

• Two headers in one game? And one of them from Pedro? Something funny is going on at Barcelona, who racked up a ninth consecutive win against Getafe, finishing 4-0. Alexis Sánchez’s first, assisted by Lionel Messi and Messi’s goal, assisted by Andrés Iniesta, were beauties. Barcelona temporarily climbed to only one point behind Madrid. But Pep Guardiola said they still can’t win the league.

• Speaking of which: is it time for Athletic Bilbao to start talking penalties with their heads? Or at least to stop fighting over them. Another battle, another miss.

Results: Osasuna 2-0 Espanyol, Real Sociedad 1-1 Betis, Barcelona 4-0 Getafe, Valencia 4-1 Rayo, Granada 2-2 Athletic, Sporting 3-2 Levante, Atlético 1-4 Real Madrid. Thursday’s fixtures: Villarreal-Málaga Racing-Mallorca Sevilla-Zaragoza.

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Today’s questions are really quite good

Cristiano Ronaldo became the fastest player to reach 100 goals in the Spanish league by scoring two to help leaders Real Madrid rebound from consecutive draws with a rout of Real Sociedad.

Gonzalo Higuaín scored before both Ronaldo and Karim Benzema hit doubles as Real Madrid showed no signs of missing the guiding hand of coach José Mourinho, who was suspended after being sent to the stands during Real’s last game, a 1-1 draw with Villarreal. Xabi Prieto scored for Real Sociedad just before half-time to bring the score back to 3-1.

Madrid stayed six points clear at the top of the table after 10-man Barcelona’s 2-0 victory at Mallorca, where Lionel Messi netted his 55th goal of the season in all competitions.

Madrid great Ferenc Puskas formerly held the record for the fastest player to reach 100 goals after doing so in 105 matches in the 1960s. Ronaldo needed 92 games to score 101.

• Mourinho shrugs off talk of mounting pressure
• Real face CSKA Moscow in second leg

José Mourinho will stay at Real Madrid next season, insisted his Portuguese compatriot Cristiano Ronaldo, following speculation that the manager will be a target for Chelsea this summer.

As Real prepared for Wednesday night’s Champions League meeting against CSKA Moscow at the Bernabéu, Mourinho and Ronaldo appeared together at a news conference and were both quizzed about the Chelsea reports. “He is going to continue,” Ronaldo, who scored Real’s goal in last month’s 1-1 first-leg draw in Moscow, said.

Mourinho responded with a terse “No” when asked if his future depended on Real winning Europe’s elite club competition, as the leaders of La Liga chase a 10th European crown and their first since 2002.

Mourinho added: “If my future depends on the result of this tie? No. Unless the club decides to fire me, but I do not base my decisions on winning or losing one match.”

The most successful manager in Chelsea’s history, Mourinho, who left in 2007 after falling out with Roman Abramovich, has two more years to run on his four-year contract with Real.

Mourinho and Ronaldo were asked about Lionel Messi’s goal haul against Bayer Leverkusen last week, when the Argentinian World Player of the Year became the first player to score five in a Champions League match.

“I’m happy for him and for football,” said Ronaldo, who was world player in 2008 before Messi won the award three times in succession. “I don’t know if I would be able to do it one day but I hope I can,” added the former Manchester United forward.

The prolific pair have again been conducting a personal scoring duel this season and Ronaldo has scored 32 goals in La Liga, two more than Messi, and 40 in all competitions, compared with 50 for the Barça forward.

“I don’t care what the others do. I just focus on myself and my team,” Ronaldo said. “If I score, good, if not it doesn’t matter. I am relaxed about it.”