By Tim Stannard

Spanish press call for end of Real Madrid vacations as club falls to Valencia

As Sports Burst judges honeymoons through the medium of commercials for Caribbean resorts, Coach Zizou at Real Madrid has barely walked in slow motion into a hot tub or watched a chef prepare a dish involving a huge amount of fire, before being whisked back to reality. 

A 2-1 defeat to Valencia on Wednesday - following a scraped victory against Huesca - has the Spanish newspaper bigwigs of 'Marca' declaring that Madrid has gone from "Champions to vacation." 

The loss leaves Madrid five points behind second-place Atletico in the table and 13 off Barcelona at the top. "A difficult moment in a difficult season," admitted Zidane after the loss. 

But, hey hoo - life and La Liga continues on Thursday with a final three games including a tussle between Sevilla and Alaves, two teams with a fine chance to grabbing the very open fourth Champions League spot. That gets underway at 1:30PM ET / 10:30AM PT on beIN SPORTS and is followed directly by Real Sociedad hosting Betis. 

But the fun doesn't end there. A particularly madcap week in Copa Libertadores continues with Gremio fighting for its future in the tournament against Universidad Catolica at 6PM ET / 3PM PT to kick off three live matches in the tournament on Thursday. Boom. Mic dropped.

Tune into to Post to Post: the soccer show on our Facebook page live at 5:30PM ET / 2:30PM PT for your chance to comment on the big news stories of the day. 

Bonucci backtracks as Maradona praises Maduro 

Juventus defender, Leonardo Bonucci, continues to discover that barely appearing to have a functioning ethics system and access to the internet do not mix. 

On Tuesday night, Bonucci responded to the racial abuse of Moise Kean by suggesting that it was 50% his own fault. On Wednesday morning, he did a beep-beep backtrack by calling racism really bad. 

By Wednesday night, it was more Joe-Biden-ing with the self-reflective statement on Instagram that he was "too hasty" and that "abuses are not acceptable" at all. 

        View this post on Instagram                   Dopo 24 ore desidero chiarire il mio pensiero. Ieri sera ho parlato alla fine della partita e mi sono espresso in modo evidentemente troppo sbrigativo, che è stato male interpretato su un argomento per il quale non basterebbero ore e per il quale si lotta da anni. Condanno ogni forma di razzismo e discriminazione. Certi atteggiamenti sono sempre ingiustificabili e su questo non ci possono essere fraintendimenti. // After 24 hours I want to clarify my feelings. Yesterday I was interviewed right at the end of the game, and my words have been clearly misunderstood, probably because I was too hasty in the way I expressed my thoughts. Hours and years wouldn't be enough to talk about this topic. I firmly condemn all forms of racism and discrimination. The abuses are not acceptable at all and this must not be misunderstood. A post shared by Leonardo Bonucci (@bonuccileo19) on Apr 3, 2019 at 1:56pm PDT

Meanwhile, reports from the Italian press suggest that Cagliari will not face a stadium ban for the racial abuse of Moise Kean as not enough fans were guilty and the abuse wasn't throughout the entire length of the game. And so it goes on. 

In other hot water news, Diego Maradona is being investigated by Mexican football authorities for ethics violations concerning political statements for dedicating a win for Dorados on Sunday to Venezuelan president, Nicholas Maduro. 

Belgium still best in world despite France being best in world 

The new FIFA rankings are out! And Sports Burst is continuing its unhealthy obsession over them. 

Despite France being World Champions and the best team in the world, Belgium are actually the official best team in the world, holding fast in the number one spot behind the non-moving France and Brazil. Who is definitely not third in the real world. 

England has moved into fourth spot to kick Croatia out while Germany continues a plodding climb back up the rankings to land in 13th in today's latest FIFA listings. 

The US of A moves up one into 24th spot, Mexico drops one to 18th despite actively improving over the past month in terms of results and performances while San Marino continues to hug the bottom spot with a ranking of 211. No-one is reading any more are they?

Sports Burst will try to coax our Gabrielle Amado and Jeremy St. Louis into talking about this on the live show at 12PM ET / 9AM PT. Just head to the beIN SPORTS Facebook page to find out if it was successful.