Cristiano Ronaldo helped Real Madrid getting past Levante

Cristiano Ronaldo helped Real Madrid getting past Levante last night, as he scored another hat-trick, in a 4-2 home win. Now being 10 points above Barça, Real Madrid are the main favorites to lift the trophy at the end of the season and with this, finally end Guardiola's men hegemony.

Real Madrid bagged another win at the Santiago Bernabéu, after defeating Levante by 4-2. With this victory and even though there are still 16 games to be played in La Liga, Real Madrid has now extended the distance to Barcelona into a 10 points gap difference, after the Blaugrana dropped another 3 points in their visit to Osasuna, this last Saturday. The Merengues are now in a very comfortable position to finally win the Spanish League title and it's fair to say that this weekend, José Mourinho has probably put Barcelona into checkmate. Cristiano Ronaldo made his 6th hat-trick of the season, but his third goal, besides being truly impressive, also had a special meaning as it was the 4000th Real Madrid goal scored at the Santiago Bernabéu, for La Liga.

Cristiano Ronaldo game photos in Real Madrid vs Levante
Real Madrid 4-2 Levante goals and highlights:

As already seen in several games during this season, Real Madrid allowed their opponents to get an early lead. Last night, Levante managed to hit the back of the net with only 5 minutes played, from a side free-kick that Sergio Ramos poorly deflected with his head, allowing Cabral to score the opener. Casillas was left with no chance, since the header was already made in a very close-range and it was Cristiano Ronaldo who immediatly showed his disgust, for his team conceding such an early goal from a set-pieces play.

The goal had arrived without Levante making much to earn it and Real Madrid knew they were going to need to push forward with all they had, in order to put their opponents against the ropes as soon as possible. However, Levante showed that they aren't in La Liga's 4th place by accident and they held on to the 1 goal advantage for as long as they could. The Merengues managed to create a few good goalscoring chances, specially in the minutes after they conceded the goal, but as time passed, Levante started to defend more efficiently.