Lionel Messi scored his 50th club goal of the season with a double on Sunday as Barcelona beat Racing Santander 2-0, but the Catalan club still remains 10 points off the Spanish League leader Real Madrid.
After scoring a remarkable five in the Champions League in midweek against a reeling Bayer Leverkusen, Messi found the net in both halves, the second a strike from the penalty spot.
The Argentine has 10 more goals overall than Cristiano Ronaldo, although the Portuguese star leads the way in La Liga with 32.
Barcelona has now won its last four league games.
Champions League-chasing Valencia continued to stutter as it squandered a two-goal lead to draw 2-2 at home to Mallorca.
Valencia has a four-point lead over Malaga, which beat Levante on Saturday.
The results:
Spanish League: Atletico Madrid 2 (Miranda 38, Falcao 90+1) bt Granada 0.
Espanyol 5 (Uche 3, 44, 68, Coutinho Correia 9, 22) bt Rayo Vallecano 1 (Tamudo 54).
Valencia 2 (Costa 23, Aduriz 42) drew with Real Mallorca 2 (Nsue 57, Victor 66).
Racing Santander 0 lost to Barcelona 2 (Messi 29, 56-pen); Osasuna 2 (Iturraspe 9-og, Raul Garcia 31) bt Athletic Bilbao 1 (Llorente 55).
Italian League: AC Milan 2 (Nocerino 7, Ibrahimovic 65) bt Lecce 0; Atalanta 1 (Manfredini 5) drew with Parma 1 (Paletta 55).
Catania 1 (Lodi 58-pen) bt Fiorentina 0; Cesena 0 lost to Siena 2 (Brienza 75, Bogdani 81); Genoa 0 drew with Juventus 0; Lazio 1 (Rubin 56-og) lost to Bologna 3 (Portanova 11, Diamanti 28, Krhin 60); Novara 1 (Jeda 16) bt Udinese 0.
