Record breaker Raul sends Real top in Spain

Real Madrid captain Raul celebrated breaking the club’s all-time appearance record with a brace as Real bounced back from their Sevilla defeat with a 4-2 home win over Valladolid on Saturday to move above Barcelona on goal difference at the top of the table.

Raul, 32, overtook the record of Manolo Sanchis with his 711th appearance in the white shirt and scored twice inside five first half minutes (13 min, 18) as Real made hard work of overcoming Valladolid.

Brazilian Marcelo and substitute Gonzalo Higuain were also on target to fend off a brave Valladolid as Real won to boost confidence for Wednesday’s Champions League home match against AC Milan.

Champions Barcelona can replace Real at the summit with a point or better at Valencia later on Saturday as they go in search of a seventh successive win, which would represent their best ever start to a league campaign.

Injuries saw forgotten Dutch midfielder van der Vaart, desperate to win a place in the Dutch team for this summer?s World Cup, started and Pellegrini also kept faith with Marcelo despite a woeful performance against Sevilla a fornight ago.

Jaded by long flights for international duty Argentine Higuain and Brazilian Kaka started on the substitutes bench while Cristiano Ronaldo was out injured with an ankle injury.

Before the match Madrid president Florentino Perez presented Raul with a trophy to celebrate his appearance record and the striker continued the celebrations on the pitch.

With 13 minutes gone Raul neatly flicked in an Esteban Granero cross for the opener and five minutes later he arrived on cue to side-foot home a Marcelo pass.

The game looked wrapped-up but Nauzet German curled an unstoppable free-kick past Iker Casillas close to the half-hour mark.

Marcelo responded with a fine individual goal smashing home with his weaker right foot with literally the final kick of the first period.

Valladolid reduced the cushion to just one goal on 53 minutes to fray Real’s nerves before substitute Higuain produced a sublime 79th-minute chipped finish to seal the game.

Sevilla’s ecstasy at beating Real two weeks ago was short-lived as the title hopefuls came crashing back down to earth with a 1-0 loss at Deportivo La Coruna on Saturday.

Sevilla thought they had underlined their title credentials with a superb 2-1 win over Real but saw a run of five straight wins come to an end with Juan Rodriguez’s fantastic strike clinching the win for Depor.

“We knew that we had not won the league by beating Real Madrid and we are not going to go down because we lost here at Depor,” said Sevilla coach Manolo Jimenez.

It was sweet revenge for Depor, who lost four times against Sevilla last season, twice in the league and twice in the King’s Cup, and La Coruna’s fourth consecutive win sees them stay fourth and move level on points with Sevilla with both sides three points adrift of Real and Barca.

Depor absorbed the pressure and scored with their first shot on target with 38 minutes gone after Sevilla failed to clear their lines.

Rodriguez showed good control before thumping in a shot off the post for a memorable first goal of the season.

A fourth consecutive clean sheet kept Sevilla at bay as Depor made it four wins on the spin.

Sevilla now travel to Stuttgart on Tuesday for their next Champions League group match having won at Rangers in their last game in the competition.