Villarreal end Barca's winning run

MADRID, Spain -- Barcelona crashed to their first league defeat of the season when they went down 3-1 at Villarreal, Marcos Senna converting two first-half penalties.

Bojan Krkic became Barcelona's youngest league marksman at the age of 17 years and 52 days but poor defending let down the visitors.

Villarreal's win took them into second place within a point of leaders Real Madrid who suffered their first league defeat of the season at Espanyol.

Valencia are level on points with Villarreal after a 4-2 win at Deportivo La Coruna.

Barcelona slipped to fourth, now just a point ahead of Espanyol.

Krkic, who impressed in Spain's Under-17 World Cup team, dragged Barcelona back into the match at 2-1 and deprived Lionel Messi of the scoring record. The Argentine was 17 years, 10 months and seven days when he scored his first Barca goal.

Coincidentally it was Messi who supplied Krkic with the pass for the goal to beat his record.

Valencia's Spanish internationals Joaquin, Ruben Baraja and Fernando Morientes (two) were on target against La Coruna.

Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard dropped Brazilian Ronaldinho after his late arrival back in Spain after international duty and Krkic replaced him in attack.

In the second minute Villarreal's Santiago Cazorfa accepted a great flick from Guillermo Franco and fired in a curling shot.

Senna's first penalty came in the 13th minute after Eric Abidal fouled Robert Pires.

Bojan scored his historic goal after 24 minutes but Barcelona were shaky in defense and Gaby Milito fouled the lively Pires in the penalty area 10 minutes later to give Senna another chance from the spot.

There was more bad news for Barcelona afterwards when Deco was ruled out for up to five weeks after tearing a thigh muscle.

Deco was hurt in the 71st minute and the first game he will miss will be Tuesday's Champions League trip to Rangers.

The loss of Deco is another blow for Barca coach Frank Rijkaard who already has key midfielder Yaya Toure on the sidelines.

Rijkaard said that he felt that international commitments had not helped Barcelona.

"Perhaps it is just a coincidence that the defeat comes after an international break," he said.

"The reality is that we hardly trained over the past two weeks and on top of that we faced a team that prepared conscientiously to face us."

Real Madrid were soon in trouble at Espanyol, falling behind in the third minute when Albert Riera headed home from a corner.

The Real defense had an uncomfortable night and were breached again eight minutes into the second period when Raul Tamudo, recalled to the Spanish international side this month, scored a superb goal.

He took a through pass from Valdo Lopes and under pressure from two defenders calmly controlled the ball before chipping over the head of Iker Casillas in goal.

Sergio Ramos pulled one back for Real in the 89th minute.

Sevilla ended a sequence of four straight league defeats with a 2-0 victory over bottom side Levante.

Luis Fabiano scored twice inside the first 13 minutes to put Sevilla in control and they cruised to only their third win of the season. E-mail to a friend