The Dutch coach's words proved to be prophetic 24 hours later as the Catalans struggled to a 1-1 draw against bottom club Numancia, a result they still felt positive about given Real Madrid's 2-0 defeat at Deportivo.

The front cover of sports daily Marca summed up the contrasting fortunes of the Spanish giants on Sunday.

"Barca - bad, Madrid - worse," said Spain's biggest selling newspaper.

Nevertheless, Barca now have an eight-point lead over Real in the race for the Spanish league title and Rijkaard took some cold comfort from being held to a draw on Numancia's frozen pitch which resembled a skating rink.

"A draw was a fair result. This game was always going to be complicated after we expended a lot of energy in the Champions League against Chelsea. This pitch made life difficult," said Rijkaard.

World Player of the Year Ronaldinho was less diplomatic about the state of the pitch at Numancia's Los Pajaritos stadium, which had 80 lorry loads of snow shovelled off it in the preceding days.

"For me it was impossible to play on this pitch. You can't play good football under these circumstances so a draw was fine," grumbled the Brazilian World Cup winner, for once losing his near-perpetual smile.

Ronaldinho trod gingerly around the pitch all night and survived unscathed but his fellow Brazilian international Belletti was not so lucky.

The defender skidded and fell on his back on an icy patch and was stretchered off.

Scans at a nearby hospital showed no serious injuries but Belletti is doubtful for Tuesday's derby against Espanyol.

Real Madrid coach Wanderley Luxemburgo struggled to find something positive to say on Sunday about their loss in La Coruna, their second successive league defeat.

"There are still plenty of games to go and we still have to play Barcelona at home.

"Eight points are not even three games, we still have a chance to claw back the difference," said Luxemburgo, demonstrating a good grasp of rudimentary mathematics if not football reality.

However, Real goalkeeper Iker Casillas provided what may eventually prove to be the club's epitaph to the season when it comes to an end in May.

"There are no excuses about the ways we played here, we were bad.

"Madrid have to rise to the occasion away from home and we didn't do that," commented Casillas, reinforcing the wise words of Rijkaard that the title this year will be won and lost in far flung corners of Spain rather than closer to home.