European Leagues Round-up: SPAIN: Some 70,000 people were forced to evacuate Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu stadium minutes before the end of a league match last night after a bomb threat in the name of Basque separatist group ETA.
The decision to abandon the game against Real Sociedad three minutes from time and evacuate the crowd was taken after Basque newspaper Gara said it received a warning from a caller claiming to represent ETA that there was a bomb in the ground.
The caller said the bomb would explode at 9 p.m., but the warning proved false. Police with sniffer dogs searched the stadium and found no bomb.
"The police have said they have completed their search and have not found anything," Real Madrid president Florentino Perez said. "The best thing we can all do now is to put this nightmare behind us."
Real Madrid's star-studded team, including Brazil's Ronaldo and England's David Beckham, suddenly trooped off the pitch with the score tied at 1-1 against Real Sociedad, a team from San Sebastian in the Basque country.
An announcement over the public address system told the crowd to leave. Spectators left the stadium in an orderly way, clearing the ground in less than 15 minutes. Hundreds streamed across the pitch on their way to the exits.
The Spanish football federation will meet today to decide whether to let the result stand or play the remaining minutes of the game later.
If the result remains at 1-1, Real would drop to fourth in the Primera Liga, 11 points behind leaders Barcelona.
Real took the lead just before the break when Brazilian striker Ronaldo cracked home with his left foot, but Sociedad levelled midway through the second half when Turkish striker Nihat Kahveci smashed home with an acrobatic finish.
Earlier Valencia had put their European woes behind them to notch their fourth Primera Liga win in a row with a 1-0 victory at home to basement side Numancia. Centre half Carlos Marchena scored the winner on 21 minutes when he headed in from point-blank range at the far post after the Numancia goalkeeper had palmed a Vicente free kick off the line.
Deportivo Coruna, who exited the Champions League group phase without scoring a goal after their 5-0 defeat against Monaco on Wednesday, were only able to manage a 2-2 draw at home to Sevilla.
A superb late strike from Barcelona midfielder Xavi allowed his side to snatch a 2-1 away win over Albacete on Saturday. The Spanish international cracked a volley into the far corner from a metre outside the area just five minutes from time.
Barca got off to a flying start when highly-rated young midfielder Andres Iniesta put his side ahead less than two minutes in after he had stolen the ball in the Albacete area.
ITALY: Italian champions AC Milan crushed Fiorentina 6-0 at the San Siro yesterday with Andriy Shevchenko and Clarence Seedorf scoring two goals each.
Ukrainian Shevchenko, widely tipped to be named European Footballer of the Year, took his season tally to 11 goals.
However, a 86th-minute Pavel Nedved strike at Bologna in Serie A's late game last night re-established Juventus' four-point lead over AC Milan.
Inter Milan drew for a remarkable 12th time in 15 games with a late Christian Vieri strike giving them a 2-2 draw away to lowly Siena who had defender Stefano Argilli sent off in the 57th minute.
Brazilian Adriano, who had opened the scoring, missed a 59th minute penalty and Tore Andre Flo's 87th minute header looked to have given Siena a 2-1 win until Vieri struck in injury-time.
AS Roma also left it late - a penalty deep in injury-time from Brazilian Mancini giving them a 1-0 win away to Brescia.
Once again Roma showed that they are little threat without Francesco Totti and they were fortunate to emerge victorious.
FRANCE: A second-half strike from Benjani gave AJ Auxerre a 1-0 victory at Olympique Marseille in a Ligue 1 match on Saturday.
And leaders and reigning champions Olympique Lyon extended their unbeaten league run to 18 matches with a laboured 0-0 draw at Girondins Bordeaux.
GERMANY: VfL Wolfsburg roared back to form yesterday with a 5-0 home win over Arminia Bielefeld that took them back up to fourth place in the Bundesliga.
Victory took the early-season leaders back to within four points of Bayern Munich, who held on to top spot going into the six-week winter break after fighting back from 2-0 down to claim a 2-2 draw with VfB Stuttgart on Saturday.
