Real Madrid had 37% of the ball at Camp Nou on Sunday and still won. Kylian Mbappe scored in the 41st and 87th minutes as Jose Mourinho’s side beat Barcelona 2-1. The result ended Barcelona’s nine-game winning start to the La Liga season and cut their lead at the top to three points. Mourinho celebrated the winner with a knee slide along the touchline. Afterwards he played the win down. “Real Madrid play to win the league, not to win at Camp Nou,” he said.
For most of the past decade, the coaches praised as geniuses have been the ones whose teams control the ball and press high. Mourinho’s methods have been treated as out of date, and he moved from job to job while that view took hold. Sunday’s result makes a case that his approach was never as old-fashioned as people said.
How Madrid won without the ball
This was a Mourinho performance from start to finish. Madrid were without Thibaut Courtois, who had flu, so Andriy Lunin started in goal. Captain Federico Valverde was hurt early on and played through it for more than 40 minutes. Barcelona, under Hansi Flick, had most of the ball, but Madrid let them have it. They defended deep and in numbers, and broke forward whenever Barcelona gave the ball away.
The opening goal was scrappy. Gerard Martin tried to clear, the ball hit Mbappe and went in. Raphinha equalised just after the hour when Pedri found him on the right of the area, and his shot was too powerful for Lunin. Lamine Yamal had five shots and Barcelona’s highest expected-goals figure (0.51), but he did not score and did not create a chance.
The winner came from a substitute. Eduardo Camavinga ran down the right after good work from Jude Bellingham and crossed for Mbappe to finish. The goal was Mbappe’s 14th of the season and his 100th for Real Madrid in all competitions. He has now scored five goals in two visits to Barcelona as a Madrid player, the most by any Madrid player since the start of the 2013-14 season. Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema managed four each.
“The only thing I said to Lunin before the game was: you train to play, not to be on the bench,” Mourinho said. That line sums up how he works. He gives players clear, simple roles and asks them to commit fully to them, even if that means a 63-year-old coach accepting less possession than his opponents.
A decade of being written off
Mourinho’s last league title came with Chelsea in 2014-15. Since then, his reputation has gone down while others have been celebrated:
- At Manchester United he won the League Cup and the Europa League, but he was sacked in December 2018.
- Tottenham sacked him in April 2021, days before a League Cup final.
- At Roma he won the first Europa Conference League in 2022 and reached the Europa League final a year later.
- He then had spells at Fenerbahce and Benfica before Real Madrid brought him back this summer, after two seasons without a trophy.
The common view was that the game had moved past him: his teams were too reactive and too willing to hand the ball to opponents. That view sometimes confused style with competence. Mourinho has never claimed possession wins matches. He says matches are won by managing their key moments, and on Sunday those moments came in the 41st and 87th minutes.
His Clasico record supports him. He is now unbeaten in six Clasicos, with four wins and two draws, a run that goes back to his first spell in charge. Only two Madrid coaches have had longer unbeaten runs: Miguel Munoz (1962-65) and Vicente del Bosque (2001-03), with seven games each. In his first spell, Mourinho won three trophies, including the record-breaking 100-point La Liga title in 2011-12.
What comes next
Madrid have now won five games in a row in all competitions, after defeats by Real Betis and Atletico Madrid in September had raised early doubts. After 10 matches, Barcelona lead with 27 points, Atletico are second on 25 and Madrid are third on 24. Barcelona have lost two in a row, including a Champions League defeat by Paris St-Germain earlier in the week.
Mourinho is already looking at the next game. “This is a great win, but when we get back to work, I’m not going to let anyone have their head in the clouds,” he said. Madrid’s next league match is away at Racing Santander. He said a win at Camp Nou counts for nothing if they slip up at El Sardinero.
One win does not settle a decade of debate. Still, it was Madrid’s first league win over Barcelona this season and only their second in eight meetings. It came with a back-up goalkeeper, an injured captain and much less of the ball, and that is hard to dismiss. Mourinho was written off as a manager whose methods had stopped working. At Camp Nou, they worked.
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Sources:
– [Al Jazeera – Key takeaways from Real Madrid’s El Clasico win](https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/10/26/real-madrid-barcelona-el-clasico-mourinho-mbappe-takeaways)
– [The Analyst – Barcelona 1-2 Real Madrid](https://theanalyst.com/articles/barcelona-vs-real-madrid-el-clasico-live-stats-10-2026)
– [ESPN – Mourinho: Real Madrid play to win the league](https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/50282227/jose-mourinho-barcelona-real-madrid-play-win-league)
– [Yahoo Sports – Mourinho celebration lights up El Clasico](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/jos-mourinho-celebration-lights-el-163312499.html)
– [OneFootball – Mourinho: “We won comfortably and deservedly”](https://onefootball.com/en/news/real-madrid-boss-mourinho-on-clasico-win-over-barcelona-we-won-comfortably-and-deservedly-43672707)
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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