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BARCELONA. — Real Madrid again made light of the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo as they crushed Deportivo la Coruna 6-2 to maintain the upper hand in the Spanish La Liga soccer title race on Wednesday night.

Madrid and Barcelona are locked on 78 points at the top of the table, but Real have a game in hand over their title rivals.

Barca remain top thanks to their better head-to-head record as Lionel Messi struck twice to relegate Osasuna in a 7-1 thrashing.

Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane made nine changes in all from the side that lost 3-2 to Barca on Sunday to reignite the title race.

Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and the injured Gareth Bale were left out the Madrid squad for a third straight away league game, but again their absence wasn’t missed.

“It is the hardest job for a coach. When they play like they did today and then maybe they won’t play in the next game,” said Zidane.

“We know I have a phenomenal group of players and all of them are ready for the challenge between now and the end of the season.”

Alvaro Morata smashed home at the near post to give the visitors the perfect start after less than a minute.

James Rodriguez then added a second from Lucas Vazquez’s cross as Madrid threatened to run riot inside the first 20 minutes.

However, the European champions have now kept just one clean sheet in their last 15 games and their defence was breached once more when Florin Andone turned home Gael Kakuta’s mishit shot 10 minutes before half-time. — AFP.