Héctor Bellerín rescued a 1-1 draw for Real Betis against Real Madrid in the dying minutes, leaving Barcelona able to extend their lead at the top of La Liga to 11 points with five games remaining.

Betis deny Madrid at the death

Real Madrid's La Liga title challenge was dented on Friday after Héctor Bellerín scored a stoppage-time equaliser to earn Real Betis a 1-1 draw and deny the visitors the three points they needed to close ground on Barcelona.

Bellerín, a former Barcelona academy product, struck late to cancel out Madrid's lead, leaving the gap between the two title contenders unchanged heading into the weekend.

Madrid had gone into the fixture with the opportunity to cut Barcelona's advantage to six points. Instead, the draw kept the deficit at eight points before Barcelona's own fixture.

Barcelona capitalise

Barcelona subsequently beat Getafe and moved 11 points clear of Real Madrid in the title race with five games left to play. The result puts Barcelona on the brink of defending their La Liga crown.

The run-in has been complicated for Barcelona by the loss of Lamine Yamal, whose season is over after the winger suffered a hamstring injury while scoring the winning penalty in a previous La Liga win against Celta Vigo. Yamal is expected to be fit in time for Spain's 2026 World Cup campaign, though his participation had initially been thrown into doubt by the injury.

Title race in numbers

Madrid's last league win came at the expense of relegation-threatened Alavés, whom they beat 2-1 thanks to goals from Kylian Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior, a result that temporarily reduced the gap with Barcelona to six points. Friday's draw at Betis reversed that momentum, and with only five rounds of fixtures remaining, Barcelona now need a fraction of the points still available to confirm the title.