Sunday's Alcorcon-Elche match was a key one; an away win would probably have settled any argument about the Segunda championship, but a Babin goal early in the second half propelled the home side to victory. To make matters worse, Elche's striker Ángel, who has scored three goals for them since arriving from Levante at the end of the transfer window, was sent off and is suspended for this week's match against Girona, as is midfielder Pelayo.
Leading scorer Ferrán Corominas, who is from Girona, will be looking to break his five-match goalscoring drought this Sunday against his hometown club--if Elche lose to the second-placed Catalans and the lead drops down to only six points, nerves down Alicante way are going to get a bit frayed.
Girona posted their fifth straight home win with a 4-0 drubbing of Lugo. Gerard Bordas scored two goals, Marcos Tébar and Jofre the others. In a statistical oddity, certainly for the Segunda, there were no cards handed out the entire game!
Villarreal's 1-0 win against Racing has already been covered in great detail here, so let's move on to Almeria, now fifth in the table after a home draw against Numancia. The goals came early, Juanma for the visitors and then Soriano for the home side, but that was it. Charles has now scored only one goal in his last six matches. Next up, a trip to Murcia to face Real, who are sure to bang Charles and the rest of the Almeria side around a bit as they battle for points to stay up.
Ponferradina remain on the fringes of the playoff race after defeating Sporting 1-0. Having lost both matches to Las Palmas, though, they are effectively four points back; both they and the Pio Pio largely play matches against teams trying to avoid relegation, so it'll be interesting to see what happens there. Ponfe are away to Huesca this week, and the islanders have a relatively short trip (for them) to Córdoba.
Speaking of Córdoba, they seem to have packed it in after a promising start to the season, as they frequently do. Braulio gave the Alicante side the lead in the first half, and they held it the rest of the way to escape the relegation zone for the first time this year (remember they lost six of their first seven games). With their recent form, it's looking more and more like Murcia, Racing, Huesca and Mirandes are going to be fighting for every point the rest of the way. Xerez, of course, is already dead in the water, having picked up a grand total of three points so far in 2013.
Other results:
Sabadell 1-1 Recre
Xerez 1-2 Las Palmas
Guadalajara 1-0 Huesca
Barcelona B 1-1 Real Murcia
Real Madrid Castilla 6-1 Mirandés