FC Barcelona missed a chance to move to second place in La Liga and narrow the gap with leaders Real Madrid when they were held to a 0-0 draw away to Athletic Bilbao on Sunday night.

Real Madrid's draw in Valencia and Girona's defeat in Mallorca opened the door for Barca against a rival that had made a huge effort to qualify for the Copa del Rey final on Thursday, and who were without several key players due to injury and suspension.

Barca's optimism clashed with the spirit of the home side, who were cheered on by over 52,000 fans in the San Mames Stadium, and Athletic outworked Barca for most of the night in a game of few clear chances.

Mallorca beat Girona 1-0 at home thanks to a Copete shot into the roof of the net in the 33rd minute.

Atletico Madrid recovered from their Copa del Rey exit with a 2-0 home win over Betis, thanks to an own goal from Betis keeper Rui Silva, who was tremendously unlucky to see the ball bounce in off his foot.

Silva then saved an Alvaro Morata penalty and two rebounds, but could do nothing to stop Morata from nodding home from close range after he had saved Rodrigo de Paul's shot.

William Carvalho curled home a stunning goal from 30 meters to give Betis hope of a fightback after 60 minutes, but Jan Oblak saved Atletico with a low stop in the 78th minute to deny Guido Rodriguez an equalizer.

On Saturday, Real Madrid dropped two points after a controversial end to their 2-2 draw in Valencia, which saw referee Gil Manzano blow the final whistle moments before Jude Bellingham headed in what would have been a 3-2 winner for the league leaders.

The referee further incensed Real Madrid by showing Bellingham a red card for his protests.

Hugo Duro's 27th minute header had put Valencia ahead before Roman Yaremchuk doubled their lead three minutes later after an error from Dani Carvajal.

Vinicius Jr pulled a goal back in the fifth minute of first half injury time and headed home the second, which was given in the 76th minute after a long VAR check.

The game also saw Valencia defender Mouctar Diakhaby carried off in the closing moments with a serious knee injury.

Sevilla continue to improve with a 3-2 win at home to Real Sociedad. Youssef En-Nesyri put Sevilla 2-0 up with goals after 11 and 13 minutes.

Andre Silva scored a 45th minute penalty after a Sergio Ramos handball, but Ramos assured the win with a 65th minute header, despite Brais Mendez's 92nd minute goal on a free kick.

Getafe and Las Palmas drew 3-3 as the visitors came back from 3-1 down to save a point.

Jaime Mata and Mason Greenwood put Getafe 2-0 up after just 13 minutes, but Sandro Ramirez pulled a goal back on 36 minutes for Las Palmas.

Nemanja Maksimovic's goal on the stroke of halftime reestablished Getafe's two-goal lead, but efforts in the 50th and 57th minutes from Sergi Cardona and Munir El Haddadi saw the points shared.

Oscar Mingueza's 73rd minute shot from outside of the area gave Celta Vigo a vital narrow 1-0 win at home to bottom side Almeria to lift them five points clear of Cadiz, who took a point from their visit to Rayo Vallecano with Javi Hernandez's late equalizer after Florien Lejeune had put Rayo ahead in a match that had to be halted for several minutes as a heavy hailstorm that fell on Madrid.

Second from bottom, Granada got worse on Sunday as Villarreal's Alexander Sorloth scored a hat-trick in his side's 5-1 win.

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