'Anything can happen' - Carlo Ancelotti urges Real Madrid players not to give up on La Liga title after late turnaround against Mallorca puts pressure on Barcelona

A late goal from 20-year-old defender Ramon helped Madrid claim a dramatic 2-1 victory over Mallorca on Wednesday night to keep the La Liga title race alive for another day. Their Clasico defeat at the weekend saw Los Blancos drop seven points behind Barcelona but they reduced that gap to four in midweek before their rivals play on Thursday night.

Barcelona can reassert their seven-point lead and claim the title by beating Espanyol, but Ancelotti insisted his players cannot afford to give up on silverware no matter how unlikely their rivals are to fall off from their position of strength.

Speaking after the game, Ancelotti said: "La Liga is over? Anything can happen in football. We didn't want to give them La Liga today. They have to play tomorrow. If they win we will congratulate them, if they don't we will see what happens. If we had played like this in all the games we would have had a better season."

While Madrid were able to claim the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Intercontinental Cup, they were knocked out of the Champions League in the quarter-finals by Arsenal and were beaten by Barcelona in the finals of both the Copa del Rey and Supercopa de Espana.

Ancelotti has a couple more games left as Madrid manager before he takes over the Brazil role. His squad will certainly have a keen eye on Barcelona's game against Espanyol but their next fixture comes on Sunday evening when they visit Sevilla.