Valencia Is Spanish Champion
Valencia won the Spanish league title for the second time in three seasons after beating host Seville, 2-0, on Sunday.
Spain midfielders Vicente Rodriguez and Ruben Baraja scored to give Valencia an unassailable seven-point lead over Real Madrid with two games to play.
“The team has worked to win this league and the satisfaction is enormous. We didn’t imagine that we could win with two games left because it was difficult to keep the pace up,” Coach Rafa Benitez said.
Valencia’s title, the sixth in its history, came after defending champion Real Madrid lost four of its last five games.
Arsenal is on the brink of going through a Premier League season unbeaten after a 1-0 victory at Fulham.
The Gunners scored on a ninth-minute goal by Jose Antonio Reyes and extended their streak to 37 games with one to play.
The record for an unbeaten run was set by Nottingham Forest, which didn’t lose in 42 games over the 1977-78 and 1978-79 seasons. Including the last two games of last season, Arsenal has gone 39 games unbeaten.
Host Inter Milan beat Parma, 1-0, on Adriano’s 62nd-minute goal to overtake Parma for fourth place in the Italian league.
Inter, bidding for a Champions League berth, has 56 points and is one point ahead of Parma with one game left. AC Milan has clinched the title with 79 points.
Benfica clinched a spot in the Champions League’s qualifying stage after a 0-0 draw against Leiria in the Portuguese league.
The point was enough to ensure third-place Sporting, which beat Guimaraes, 1-0, cannot overtake its Lisbon rival. Sporting will play in the UEFA Cup next season.
In Germany, goalkeeper Rein van Duijnhoven and VfL Bochum set a Bundesliga record with their 13th home shutout in a 3-0 win over SC Freiburg.
Thousands of Ajax supporters engulfed Amsterdam’s Leidseplein Square in a sea of red and white after the team clinched its 29th Dutch league championship by beating NAC Breda, 2-0.
Antonio Barijho scored three goals and Boca Juniors beat Independiente, 4-1, and remained atop the Argentine league standings.
Quick Passes
Diego Maradona was moved to a different clinic in Buenos Aires for treatment of heart and lung complications.
Maradona, a 43-year-old soccer great, left the private Suizo-Argentina Clinic after the family and doctors spent the last two days considering new treatment plans. The new clinic was not identified.
Maradona was admitted to the Suizo-Argentina Clinic on April 18 with a heart inflammation condition and a lung infection and spent 12 days in intensive care.
Maradona abruptly left the clinic April 25 and spent nearly a week at a country estate before being forced to return.
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Former Atletico de Madrid president Jesus Gil suffered a stroke and was hospitalized in serious condition in Madrid.
Gil, 71, suffered paralysis on the right side of his body and was semi-conscious.
