La Liga Week 19 Standings: Barcelona Wins Thanks to Lionel Messi Hat Trick, Real Madrid & Cristiano Ronaldo Still in First Place

By Damon Salvadore First Posted: Jan 20, 2015 12:00 AM EST

Real Madrid and Barcelona both had a great week, remaining on top of the La Liga standings.

Lionel Messi led Barcelona to 4-0 victory against Deportivo in a critical road game. Last week Barcelona was the big winners defeating Atletico Madrid, and with this win, Barcelona improved to 14-2-3. Superstar striker Messi recorded another hat trick in his incredible career. With those three goals, Messi now has 19 this season. Neymar ranks second on the squad with 12 goals.

As usual, goalkeeper Claudio Bravo was fantastic in net, not conceding a single goal. The 31-year-old netminder from Chile has been by far the best at his position this season, allowing just nine goals in 19 games. It is most likely that Bravo will win this year's Ricardo Zamora Trophy. Barcelona will take on Elche in their next game, again on the road.

As Barcelona was pounding Deportivo, Real Madrid was taking care of business nearly 400 miles away in Getafe.

Real Madrid won their second consecutive game, defeating Getafe CF, 3-0. Two-time Ballon d'Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo found the net twice against goalkeeper Jordi Codina. Ronaldo now has an amazing league-high 28 goals scored this season, nine more than Messi, who has the second most. Gareth Bale scored his ninth goal of the season in the 67th minute.

Real Madrid's offense now has 62 goals scored in 18 games, by far the most in the league. In the 2011-12 season, Real Madrid scored 121 goals, a La Liga record. There's a chance we could see Ronaldo break Messi single season scoring record of 50 goals, and Real Madrid break the team scoring record.

Real Madrid will face Cordoba next week.

Of course, we can never count out the defending champions. After losing a crucial game to Barcelona last week (where stars Messi, Neymar and Suarez scored), Mario Mandzukic rose to the occasion. Mandzukic scored on a penalty kick in the 38th minute against goalkeeper Oier Olazábal. Mandzukic now has eight goals this season, and Atletico Madrid picked up their 14th victory of the season in a 2-0 victory. Miguel Moya earned another shutout, but the remains four points out of first place.

Atletico Madrid will play Rayo Vallecano at home in their next game. Rayo is just 7-2-10 this season, so this will be a must-win game for Atletico Madrid.

Sevilla has been an underrated squad lately not losing a single game since Nov. 22, 2014. The last match Sevilla lost was to Barcelona, having remained unbeaten in their last six games. Sevilla defeated Malaga in their last game, 2-0. Carlos Bacca is quickly making a name for himself. The 28-year-old Colombian has 11 goals and three assists this season, and he has his squad in contention to compete for the 2015 Spanish league title.

Week 19 of the La Liga season saw the best teams win, and the best players score. We're officially halfway through the season, and multiple teams are still alive to win the championship this year. If the second half of the season is as good as the first, fans are in for quite a ride.