Deportivo La Coruña 3 - Celta Vigo 0

Deportivo: Juanmi; Scaloni, Naybet, Donato, Romero; Víctor, Sergio, Mauro Silva, Amavisca (Duscher 36'); Makaay (Capdevila 84'), Diego Tristán (Luque 76'). 4-4-2.
Celta: Cavallero; Coira (McCarthy 69'), Cáceres, Berizzo, Sylvinho; Luccin, Giovanella (José Ignacio 54'); Jesuli (Vagner 54'), Edu, Gustavo López; Catanha. 4-2-3-1.

Team changes: Deportivo: Naybet, Diego Tristán for César, Valerón / Celta: No change.

Goals:
1-0. 43. Diego Tristán. Dribbled past Berizzo and hit shot past keeper.
2-0. 48. Sergio. Turned ball in off Cavallero's hands following corner from left.
3-0. 91. Luque. Ran on to pass from right midfield to shoot low past Cavallero.

Deportivo La Coruña moved up to third place after a 3-0 victory over their neighbours Celta. It should have been a game of Gallician solidarity in support of the persons affected by the recent M/V Prestige oil spill disaster, but the pre-match build up was spoilt by the insistence of Deportivo president César Augusto Lendoiro that Celta put up a bank guarantee of €3,000 euros to pay for any eventual damage by their supporters. Eventually Manuel Fraga, the president of the Xunta de Gallicia, stepped in to calm things down, but Celta president Horacio Gómez decided not to travel the 150 kilometres to La Coruña and joined local fans watching the match on a giant screen in Vigo.

The atmosphere amongst the players was not at first affected, and there were warm embraces all round before kick off. However a hard tackle by Cáceres put Amavisca out of the game, and Berizzo and cáceres clashed with Diego Tristán more than once. Depor had a goal disallowed early on, Makaay receiving Víctor's pass in a marginal offside position before beating Cavallero, and Jesuli had a penalty appeal turned down at the other end when he was tripped by Mauro Silva in the area. With ten minutes to go to half time, Catanha misread a Gustavo López cross and failed to connect, and only a minute later the home side took the lead, Tristán creating a goal out of nothing, leaving Berizzo for dead before drilling his shot past Cavallero from the edge of the area.

Four minutes after the restart Cavallero did well to turn away Víctor's shot for a corner, but the keeper made a mistake when the dead ball kick came across, deflecting Sergio's wide-angled shot into his own net. Lotina made a double change, bringing on José Ignacio and Vagner, but it was the home side who came close to scoring again when Makaay couldn't hit the target after Tristán put him through. Only Gustavo López was creating any danger for the visitors, and he hit the post with a first time long shot after Juanmi had come out of his area to clear. But with the game coming to an end substitute Luque ran on to a long pass from Scaloni to shoot wide of Cavallero and make it three, the referee turning down Celta's appeals for offside.

There were further clashes between some of the players as the final whistle blew, in particular when Berizzo appeared to punch Naybet on the chin after kicking the ball at him. However it came to nothing, and Depor clock up their tenth game in a row without defeat to move above their rivals into third place. Celta slip to fifth, and need to have their captain Mostovoi back as soon as possible if they are to hold their own in the difficult programme to come this month. He only reappeared a couple of days ago though, four days late for training, claiming that he had not yet recovered from his ankle injury. Lotina needs to sort that out quickly.