While the results of El Clasico rarely outright determine the eventual champions of La Liga, meetings between Real Madrid and Barcelona can still shape and make title races. Los Blancos’ 2-1 victory at Camp Nou on Sunday evening was a clear case of the latter.
Barcelona headed into the game with a 100% record in the league and as firm favourites to win the match and extend their advantage on Real Madrid to nine points. Had they sent Jose Mourinho’s side packing, as many were confidently predicting, Barca’s implied chance of winning the title would have soared from around 80% towards the 90% mark.
While no prizes are handed out after 10 matches, we’d have been in almost uncharted territory for one side to be such clear favourites at such an early stage in the campaign.
Has Mourinho stumbled on the solution at Real Madrid?
While Real Madrid got a little bit lucky with the opening goal and needed stand-in keeper Andriy Lunin to make several saves, perhaps the most striking thing about Sunday’s result was that it was largely merited.
This was no smash-and-grab success, but a victory earned by the more incisive team on the night. For once, Real Madrid looked balanced in attack and showed concentration in a determined defensive effort that stifled a strangely out-of-sorts Barca.
Comfortably the best performance of Mourinho’s second spell to date, this was a victory that built on recent improvements that can be pretty clearly traced back to the hour mark in Rome a fortnight ago.
Mourinho’s decision to replace Vinicius Junior and move Fede Valverde to right-back that night helped spark a 4-3 comeback victory. Denzel Dumfries and Trent Alexander-Arnold have been relegated to back-up roles ever since, while Vinicius’ four-game domestic ban has helped create an opportunity for Yan Diomande to shine on the left flank.
Vinicius’ hair pull and subsequent protestations may end up having grave consequences for the Brazilian. While it remains a relatively small sample size, the current evidence strongly suggests that Diomande and Mbappe work better as a duo and create a more balanced attack, one that doesn’t constantly leave the impression of players treading on each other’s toes in the same areas of the pitch.
The performance in El Clasico suggests Real Madrid have found their blueprint for moving forward this season. That’s a positive, of course, but it does leave one or two awkward questions for Mourinho and the club as we head into the winter months.
Also taking Vinicius’ current form into account, it’s hard to see how or why Mourinho would opt to simply bring the 26-year-old back into the team when the suspension ends. However, benching a player who in August signed a lucrative new contract that runs until 2032 might not go down well in the boardroom. The Madrid boss will need all of his experience and man-management skills to handle what could quickly become a tricky situation.
There is also the additional question of just what Real Madrid intend to do with their two right-backs, most notably Trent Alexander-Arnold, whose fall from grace continues to show no sign of slowing.
The ex-Liverpool star is now only the third-choice right-back at the Santiago Bernabeu, following a 2025 transfer that has gone badly for all involved. It’s getting increasingly difficult to see how that situation resolves itself, with a parting of the ways in one of the next two transfer windows looking increasingly likely.
Back-to-back defeats leave Barca with food for thought
Real Madrid’s victory may have ensured we do have a title race, but it’s Barcelona who remain the clear favourites to be champions of Spain for the third year in a row. They have looked by far the more complete team over the course of this campaign to date, and that should not be forgotten as the dust settles on the latest edition of El Clasico.
However, dreams of a champagne season where the Blaugrana would continue to sweep all opponents aside with their blistering brand of attacking football have been dampened considerably by two defeats in the space of six days.
Both their 4-2 loss in Paris and 2-1 defeat on Sunday highlighted how the defensive flaws that have let them down on the big European stage in the past two years remain unresolved. Whether those issues are purely systemic or more due to a lack of elite-level quality at the back is open for debate.
Hansi Flick could rightly point to an otherwise excellent record against Real Madrid when anyone brings into question his high-risk football or management of the big games. Before Sunday, Barca had won six of their seven competitive Clasicos with the German at the helm, scoring 22 goals in the process.
Perhaps this was just a bad day at the office, particularly for Lamine Yamal, who put in one of his worst performances in a Barca shirt. The Catalans should get back on track when they host Alaves this weekend, but it won’t be long before they face another acid test, with a trip to the Estadio Metropolitano to take on Atletico Madrid less than a fortnight away.
Can Atleti make it a three-way fight?
No doubt to the annoyance of Atletico Madrid fans, Los Rojiblancos can frequently be overlooked in the discourse that surrounds Clasico weekend and its implications at the top of the table.
Sunday’s result would have been welcomed right across the Spanish capital and a quick glance at the standings now points towards the tantalising prospect of a genuine three-horse title race.
Atleti find themselves sandwiched between Real Madrid, who they have already beaten, and Barcelona, who will soon head their way. They’ve won eight of their opening 10 fixtures, conceding only eight goals in the process.
Their 25-point haul would have been two fewer had Deportivo La Coruña’s Kevin not missed when it seemed easier to score in the dying moments of Saturday’s match at the Metropolitano. It was far from a vintage Atletico Madrid display, but they continue to churn out home victories and encouragingly have also done likewise on the road in recent weeks.
All in all, it has been a positive start to the campaign for Diego Simeone’s team. For different reasons, their four leading scorers from last season have contributed just one goal to their total of 20 so far in La Liga 2026/27.
Julian Alvarez’s weekend apology for pushing to join Barcelona in the summer may help to smooth over his reintegration into the side. While it won’t win over everyone, if Atleti can get their attacking talisman back to his best level, the Argentine is still the player most capable of sparking life into a potential title challenge in the red-and-white half of Madrid.
All of a sudden, a race that was in danger of turning into a Barca procession is very much alive. The Catalans are still the team to beat, but the Madrid clubs are right on their tails, with another top-three showdown to squeeze in before the international break.
Mark Sochon is an experienced football writer and has been the editor of LaLigaExpert.com since 2018. Based in Madrid, he has been covering La Liga and Spanish football for more than a decade. Aside from writing most of the content here, he also covers La Liga and European competitions for Goal and Betfred, while his work has previously been published by the likes of the Guardian and World Soccer.
During his time in Spain, he has travelled up and down the country, attending matches in virtually every top-flight stadium. His areas of expertise include data-led match predictions and probability analysis, as well as Spanish football team news, with La Liga predicted lineups researched and published each week. | Follow Mark Sochon on X