PARIS, FEBRUARY 28: They are two of the greatest teams in world football. Real Madrid and Bayern Munich both had plenty to celebrate at the weekend as they prepared for their European Champions League meeting on Tuesday with impressive domestic performances. Real are back at their best just as the going gets tough - as they proved with a rampaging 3-0 win over arch-rivals Barcelona on Saturday night. Bayern, who celebrated their centenary on Sunday, took a stranglehold on the German League race 24 hours earlier with a 4-1 win over an Eintracht Frankfurt side that had won their last three games. It all points to a classic encounter between teams who have been European champions 10 times between them. Real may have more to play for. Their place in next season's tournament still hangs in the balance while it is hard to see Bayern slipping in the German title race. Deportivo La Coruna raced six points clear at the top of the Spanish League after a 2-1 win at home to Mallorca on Sunday. Prolific Dutch striker Roy Makaay and Brazilian Djal Minha scored the goals as Deportivo moved to 49 points from 26 matches, six ahead of Real Zaragoza and Real Madrid. Both have 43 points. Real Zaragoza kept up their championship challenge with a 2-1 win at home to Celta Vigo while Japanese international Shoji Jo scored his first goals in Spain to lift Valladolid to a 2-1 win over Real Oviedo. Jo opened the scoring in the 34th minute on the counter-attack and then scored the match-winner with a header. Alaves scored a 2-0 win over Atletico Madrid to leave the capital's second club still in danger of relegation. The triumph lifted unfashionable Alaves into fourth place, ahead of Barcelona. In Saturday's headline match, Brazilian star Roberto Carlos and French international striker Nicolas Anelka laid the foundations for Real Madrid's swamping of Barca. Fullback Roberto Carlos gave Real the lead with a 35-metre free-kick that powered its way past Barca goalkeeper Francesc Arnau after just five minutes. Anelka, playing for the first time since January 10, then ended his league scoring drought in the 23rd minute. Real made certain of victory in the 53rd minute when Morientes claimed his 15th goal of the season with a piece of clinical finishing - delighting an 84,000 crowd. Barca's woes worsened when their Brazilian ace Rivaldo announced that an injured right ankle could keep him out of Wednesday's home Champions League game with Porto. Bayern's lead in Germany is five points after Alexander Zickler scored twice in the win over relegation-strugglers Eintracht. Second-placed Bayer Leverkusen fought back from a goal down to beat Hertha Berlin 3-1 while third-placed Hamburg secured a 2-1 home victory over Kaiserslautern. In Italy, Juventus overcame the sending off of defender Paolo Montero to beat Roma 2-1 and maintain a four-point lead over Lazio at the head of the Serie A standings. Filippo Inzaghi scored the winner which took Juventus to 50 points - ahead of Lazio (46), AC Milan (45), Inter (43) and Roma (42), who saw their title ambitions badly dented in Turin. Dutch mid-fielder Edgar Davids gave Juventus the lead but Roma levelled seven minutes later when Marco Delvecchio got in front of his marker to hook a high ball past Juventus' Dutch 'keeper Edwin Van Der Sar. Five minutes before the break, Montero punched away a long ball that would have put Roma skipper Francesco Totti clean through. The Uruguayan was promptly sent off, but it didn't prevent Juventus restoring their lead within a minute of the re-start through Inzaghi. Elsewhere, AC Milan could only draw 0-0 at Cagliari but Inter returned to the title race by beating Venezia 3-0. Christian Vieri opened the scoring with a 25-metre strike in the 42nd minute, Chilean Ivan Zamorano made it 2-0 soon after the re-start and Uruguayan Alvaro Recoba wrapped up the points with a low drive. The bad news was losing Vieri to a thigh muscle injury which coach Marcello Lippi said will keep him out of next weekend's Derby - raising doubts, too, about their second crunch game the following week against Lazio. In France, there was a huge surprise last night when Strasbourg, who are battling to stave off relegation, beat runaway French first division leaders Monaco 3-2. Monaco's unexpected loss in Alsace still left them with an unassailable-looking 10 point cushion over second-placed Lyon, who leapfrogged Paris St Germain to second position after beating Marseille 2-0 on Saturday. Olivier Echouafni, Teddy Bertin and Brahim Hemdani scored the goals for Strasbourg while David Trezeguet, who was married 24 hours earlier, netted both of Monaco's goals. His double lifted the French international level with Brazilian Sonny Anderson of Lyon as the league's top scorer with 18 goals. Lyon's goals against Marseille, in a match that saw 10 bookings and a player sent off from either side, came from their expensive strike pairing - Tony Vairelles and Anderson. Marseille are a club in crisis and have been pushed into the relegation dogfight as they prepare for a pair of Champions League meetings with Chelsea. Third-placed PSG, meanwhile, had to rely on a last-minute equaliser to grab a point in a 1-1 draw at home to Nancy while Auxerre lost ground with a 2-0 defeat at Bastia, the Corsican side maintaining their 100 per cent home record. Reigning champions Bordeaux, who face Manchester United in the Champions League on Wednesday, hammered Nantes 3-0 with all their goals coming in the last 20 minutes.
