Riots marr Barça’s La Liga victory

While Villarreal was the team that prevented Barcelona from claiming the league title a week earlier, it was also Villarreal that snuffed out any remnants of hope remaining for Real Madrid. Able to celebrate a day ahead of their match with Mallorca, FC Barcelona fielded a team of inexperienced players and paid the price with a 3-2 win for Mallorca.

Barcelona was definitely in a party mood on Saturday night, with cheers on the streets, fireworks, and horns blaring and everywhere you look, balconies are adorned with the claret and blue colours of FC Barcelona.

In the centre of Barcelona – in Plaça Catalunya, close to the Canaletas fountain where Barça victories are celebrated – 15,000 people congregated to celebrate. However, the celebrations followed in much the same way as the Champions League victory in 2006 and a small section of the crowd started throwing bottles at police, with the inevitable result; arrests were made, more trouble followed and riot police used plastic bullets to control the crowd.

With the double under his belt after Wednesday’s Copa del Rey win, Pep Guardiola is now focusing on the treble with the Champions League final against Manchester United on May 27th.

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