Chelsea wantaway striker Diego Costa appears to have finally wrangled the move he has been angling for, back to Atletico Madrid and their shiny new stadium.

The statement on Atletico Madrid's website:

First things first: clickbait! But not really. In soccer, had Cristiano Ronaldo converted, this wouldn’t have been an assist for Isco. But if we’re talking hockey, yes. The confines of a rink are intensely intimate, so the preceding pass is usually as important as the ultimate one. In soccer, we know that’s less frequently the case.

Atletico Madrid defeated Athletic Bilbao 2-1 at the San Mames on Tuesday to continue their unbeaten start to league play after five matches. But anemic draws against Girona and Valencia find them trailing Barcelona by four points, and you can’t fight the feeling that despite the continued excellence of players like Koke and Antoine Griezmann, there’s a Diego Costa-sized hole in this Atleti side.

Real Madrid and Karim Benzema have agreed to terms on a two-year contract extension with the striker now set to stay until 2021, past the Frenchman’s 33rd birthday.

Marking Lionel Messi is like marking the smoke monster in Lost, even on a good day. When La Pulga is feeling particularly motivated, as he has been so far this season, it's like if the smoke monster could also teleport and shoot lasers.

Eibar found that out the hard way, finding themselves on the wrong side of a 6-1 demolition by Barcelona, four of which came from Messi.

On the back of Sunday’s Ligue 1 fiasco which saw Paris Saint-Germain beat a French opponent by only two goals, Edinson Cavani moved quickly to dismiss the simmering rumors of an irrevocable fallout between himself and new boy Neymar. 

Gareth Bale has done it again. Perhaps best known for his stunning sprint against Barcelona in the 2014 Copa del Rey Final (one that had Usain Bolt saying: “It’s a goal any sprinter in the world would like to score one day. He’s the fastest footballer in the world at the moment.”), Bale has scored another scorching effort for Real Madrid. 

Cristiano Ronaldo's five-game ban for shoving a referee during the Spanish Super Cup has ended. This is good news for Madrid fans because, barring a promising win over Real Sociedad this weekend, they have not been the fire-breathing galactico dragon we all thought we were going to see.

Consecutive draws against Valencia and Levante put Madrid four points down from Barcelona, but now that the second-best player in the world is returning from suspension, Madrid will no longer have to rely on the heroics of Borja Mayoral to win games.