Bayern back at the top of the league, Juve suffer 5th Serie A defeat

A long-range strike from Leroy Sane sent Bayern Munich back to the top of the Bundesliga table on Saturday after the defending champions were briefly overtaken by Borussia Dortmund.

Sane’s goal sealed a 1-0 victory over wrestlers Arminia Bielefeld, who held Bayern at bay for the first 70 minutes at the Allianz Arena.

Sane has scored for the ninth time this season as Bayern, chasing a 10th consecutive Bundesliga title, restored their one-point advantage over Dortmund.

Diogo Jota’s first brace saw Liverpool take a landslide 4-0 home win over Southampton to move up to second in the Premier League table on Saturday.

The Portuguese striker led Andrew Robertson’s withdrawal to open the scoring after 97 seconds – the Premier League’s fastest goal this season – before his strike from Mohamed Salah’s good work brought the score to 2- 0 in 32 minutes.

Midfielder Thiago Alcantara added to his superb midweek Champions League goal against Porto with a third five minutes later and Virgil van Dijk used a fourth against his former club early in the second. half time.

Barcelona beat Villarreal 3-1 on Saturday as they won for the first time this season and offered new manager Xavi Hernandez a second straight La Liga triumph.

Memphis Depay calmly got around goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli to score a spectacular 88th-minute goal that restored his lead and Philippe Coutinho added a time-out penalty as Barcelona advanced to 23 points, seven behind leaders Real Madrid .

Villarreal hit back through Samuel Chukwueze to equalize after 76 minutes after Frenkie de Jong’s first effort in the second half saw Barcelona open the scoring.

Barcelona’s victory follows a fortuitous 1-0 win over Espanyol last week in Xavi’s managerial debut and a 0-0 draw against Benfica in the Champions League midweek.

“We were less dominating than expected, but in the end we found the goal with Memphis. Those are three golden points. You also have to be lucky. Villarreal didn’t deserve to lose,” said Xavi.

Inter Milan came close to one point from the Serie A summit on Saturday thanks to a 2-0 victory over Venezia, while Duvan Zapata racked up misery for Juventus, who are reeling from an investigation on his accounts.

Hakan Calhanoglu continued his recent fine form in the 34th minute when he recovered the ball and scored the first goal through a crowd of players, and Lautaro Martinez added the second from the penalty spot in stoppage time.

Inter have won seven of their last nine games in all competitions – drawing a draw with the other two – and are at the top after securing their Champions League stint in the last 16 after a decade of absence in midweek.

“The only negative was that we should have scored the second goal earlier,” said Inter coach Simone Inzaghi.

Atalanta strengthened their grip on fourth and last Serie A in the Champions League thanks to Colombian Zapata’s seventh goal in the 28th minute to secure their 1-0 victory over Juventus in Turin.

Atalanta are six points ahead of their closest rivals for fourth place Roma, while Juventus are another point away from eighth place after the last uninspiring display leading them to be whistled by angry fans who saw their team lose this league for the fifth time. season.

Massimiliano Allegri’s Juventus have scored just 18 goals in 14 league appearances, the lowest total in the Serie A top 10.

Juve’s defeat came after a difficult week in which they were humiliated by European champions Chelsea on November 23 and then police raided their offices on November 26 as part of a transfer investigation of suspicious players.

Juve confirmed on Saturday evening that President Andrea Agnelli was among current and former directors being investigated for “false accounting” and “issuing invoices or other documents for non-existent transactions”.

Turin prosecutors announced on November 26 that the police were looking into what Sky Sport Italia reports are some 282 million euros ($ 319.2 million) in suspicious capital gains from transfer agreements.

(With the contribution of the agencies)