Higuaín shoots back into contention

The strangest thing about the festival of clean goal-bound strikes that was the standout feature of the weekend's Liga action from my armchair was that Barcelona did not participate, its only score against a game Sporting Gijón being a rather sketchy deflected effort from Adriano. It was, however, enough to maintain its advantage over the rest, including the one-point gap on Real Madrid for whom Gonzalo "Pipita" Higuaín blazed back into contention for a regular first-team place with a no-nonsense hat-trick in the 0-4 win at Espanyol in Sunday's late game.

The first was typical of the Argentinean forward's blissfully simple approach: running into space off the back of the last defender before applying an excellent first touch that took the ball into the ideal spot wide of his marker but shy of the goalkeeper for Higuaín to slot home after just 17 minutes. This was a remarkable return for a player who had not started a game for Real in 10 months, only accumulating a few dozen minutes this season as a substitute. But if Higuaín had shown great aplomb with the first, his second goal - crucial in quelling stiff Espanyol resistance well into the second half - was a worthy companion to the weekend's unusually large selection of fiery netbusters. It was a decent enough ball into the right channel by Álvaro Arbeloa, but it did not have the word "assist" written all over it until Pipita lashed it first time across the face of goalkeeper Christián Álvarez, rising into the top corner. Truly earning its credit as an assist was Cristiano Ronaldo's deliciously generous lay-up for former Espanyol favorite José María Callejón, before Higuaín rounded off the result.

Higuaín's second might have easily been goal of the week any other time, but Saturday had already supplied an excellent Getafe-Málaga encounter, finally won by Julio Baptista's thrilling overhead kick after Pedro León had given the Madrid side a lead with a sensational volley. On the same evening, Sergio Canales had given Valencia all three points with a left-footed lash, while just up the road in Vila-real, Giuseppe Rossi showed that there is a lot you can do with a spot kick. After the ref had disallowed his first (successful) penalty take and harshly produced a yellow card because the Villarreal man was adjudged to have come to a compete halt in the middle of his run-up, the Italian-American striker pulled off a delicate chip à la Zidane at the second time of asking. Very cheeky.

But most stunning of all was Íñigo Martínez's 60-meter bombshell for Real Sociedad, although the defender's missile counted for nought as Athletic Bilbao won the season's first Basque derby 1-2.