La Liga wrap: Barca held, Santander edge Sevilla

Sporting Gijon proved Barcelona are human after all on Saturday, holding the reigning La Liga champions to a 1-1 draw at the Estadio El Molinon.

In the process, Sporting ended Barca’s record-breaking streak of 16 top-flight wins and became the first side to take points off the Catalan giants since Mallorca held them to a 1-1 draw at the Nou Camp on October 3.

Ahead of a crunch Champions League match against Arsenal in London on Wednesday, Barca boss Pep Guardiola rested several of his first-team regulars, with Pedro, Sergio Busquets and Eric Abidal starting on the bench.

David Barral opened the scoring for Sporting after 16 minutes with a sensational solo effort, and Barca had to wait until the 80th minute to secure a point thanks to a sublime David Villa chip.

Elsewhere on Saturday, a brace from Spanish winger Joaquin helped Valencia to a 2-1 away win over Atletico Madrid, piling more pressure on Quique Sanchez Flores, whose side have now lost their past five matches.

Atletico took an early lead thanks to former Arsenal winger Jose Antonio Reyes, but Joaquin hit back for the visitors just before the break to level proceedings.

Flores will be ruing a missed penalty from Uruguayan striker Diego Forlan – who saw his spot kick cannon of the upright – and Joaquin made Atletico pay dearly with a winner four minutes from the end.

In Saturday’s later game, 10-man Racing Santander scored an injury-time winner to post a thrilling 3-2 win over Sevilla in an ill-tempered affair at the Estadio El Sardinero.

Racing looked to be cruising when a strike from Christian Fernandez and an Ivan Rakitic own goal had them 2-0 up after 20 minutes, but the game turned sharply when Fernandez was dismissed five minutes before half-time for a rash two-footed challenge.

Sevilla’s Federico Fazio scored from the resulting free-kick and his side looked to have stolen a point when Luis Fabiano’s 83rd-minute penalty beat Racing goalkeeper Tono.

But a long-range chip from Manuel Arana Rodriguez in the second minute of injury time caught Sevilla goalkeeper Andres Palop badly out of position, setting off wild celebrations on the bench as Racing improved to 12th in La Liga.