Kroos: Everyone was sorry when Ancelotti left

Toni Kroos says every single player at Real Madrid was sorry to see the departure of coach Carlo Ancelotti this year.

Despite ending Madrid's long wait for their 10th European title in 2014, Ancelotti was fired by president Florentino Perez after failing to deliver the Liga title or the Copa del Rey last season, with Rafael Benitez installed in his place.

While Benitez has been forced to battle constant rumours of player unrest this season, Cristiano Ronaldo described Ancelotti as "a big bear" in an interview with ESPN and admitted he would relish the chance to play for the former AC Milan head coach again.

Ronaldo missing Ancelotti, Messi's fitness & Neville's debut -La Liga talking points

Barcelona saw their lead at the top of La Liga cut to two points last weekend as they were held to a 1-1 draw at Valencia, with Atletico in second place and Real Madrid just two further back in third.

Luis Enrique's side host Deportivo La Coruna in the 15th round of La Liga, the Catalans' last match before flying out to Japan for the Club World Cup.

That game comes on Saturday, with Madrid facing a tough trip to Villarreal on Sunday and Atletico at home to Athletic Bilbao in an exciting encounter the same day. And in Eibar, Gary Neville makes his Primera Division debut with Valencia after losing to Lyon in the Champions League on Wednesday night.

With that and much more to talk about ahead of the weekend, here is Goal's guide to all the latest action and the biggest stories developing in the Primera Division...

'Real Madrid can still win La Liga and UCL'-say Fernando Hierro

The club have been backed to end the season with silverware despite recently suffering a heavy Clasico defeat to Barcelona

Real Madrid are still capable of winning La Liga and the Champions League, according to the club legend Fernando Hierro.

While Madrid are in third place and only four points off Barcelona, Benitez's tenure has already experienced difficulties including reported dressing room tensions, a Clasico thrashing at the hands of Barcelona and a Copa del Rey expulsion.

The latter came about due to Denis Cheryshev's selection against Cadiz - the club's hierarchy claiming not to have been notified that he had yet to serve a suspension in the competition before eventually accepting their exclusion - but the 4-0 defeat to Barca at Camp Nou brought the most stinging criticism of Benitez.

BBC Award: Yaya Toure wins BBC African Footballer of the year award

Manchester City and Ivory Coast star player, Yaya Toure has won the BBC African Footballer of the year award . He beat competition from Yacine Brahimi, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Andre Ayew and Sadio Mane to win the coveted award in London today. He last won it in 2013, and has now become the only player to have won the award twice apart from Jay Jay Okocha and Kanu Nwankwo.

"I am very proud. To receive this dedication from the fans is unbelievable" Toure told BBC Sport. "Also I want to pay tribute to the other nominees. African football is growing up, becoming much better and we have fantastic young players coming through now. I am delighted and very happy. And as an African player, I want to lead all my younger brothers to be successful in the future. When I was a kid I was always dreaming of being an important player. I have sacrificed a lot. I will continue to try to win a trophy every year, I will fight to win a personal trophy." he said

Real Madrid's second Cheryshev appeal dismissed

After a second appeal against their expulsion was rejected, the Liga side's hopes of staying in the Copa del Rey look to be over

Real Madrid have seen their second appeal against expulsion from the Copa del Rey for fielding an ineligible player rejected by the Administrative Tribunal for Sport (TAD).

Madrid were kicked out of the competition for playing Denis Cheryshev in the first-leg of their round-of-32 tie with Cadiz. The Russian - who picked up three bookings in last season's competition while on loan at Villarreal - started and scored in a 3-1 win for Rafael Benitez's side.

Cadiz complained and Madrid subsequently saw an appeal against their disqualification turned down by the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) on Thursday.

And the TAD has concurred with the RFEF's ruling, meaning Madrid will not have the opportunity to regain the trophy they last won in 2014.

Tech: Facebook Joins Stampede of Tech Giants Giving Away Artificial Intelligence Technology

Facebook is releasing for free the designs of a powerful new computer server it crafted to put more power behind artificial-intelligence software. Serkan Piantino, an engineering director in Facebook’s AI Research group, says the new servers are twice as fast as those Facebook used before. “We will discover more things in machine learning and AI as a result,” he says.

The social network’s giveaway is the latest in a recent flurry of announcements by tech giants that are open-sourcing artificial-intelligence technology, which is becoming vital to consumer and business-computing services. Opening up the technology is seen as a way to accelerate progress in the broader field, while also helping tech companies to boost their reputations and make key hires.

In November, Google opened up software called TensorFlow, used to power the company’s speech recognition and image search (see “Here’s What Developers Are Doing with Google’s AI Brain”). Just three days later Microsoft released software that distributes machine-learning software across multiple machines to make it more powerful. Not long after, IBM announced the fruition of an earlier promise to open-source SystemML, originally developed to use machine learning to find useful patterns in corporate databanks.

Real Madrid persist with Cheryshev appeal

Real Madrid are to continue with the appeal against their Copa del Rey expulsion having initially had it rejected by the RFEF for fielding a suspended player against Cadiz

Real Madrid are to appeal to the Administrative Tribunal for Sport (TAD) regarding their expulsion from the Copa del Rey due to fielding the ineligible Denis Cheryshev.

The Appeal Committee of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) had previously rejected Madrid's appeal against their disqualification.

Russia international Cheryshev started and scored in a 3-1 victory over Cadiz in the first leg of Madrid's round-of-32 tie earlier this month.