Mourinho's Madrid six points behind Barça after two defeats

Mourinho's Madrid sink to six points behind Barça

A goal in the 89th minute. A right-back organizing what the midfielders should be organizing. A coach saying that Valverde, if needed, will put on the gloves and go in goal. Real Madrid's 2026/27 season, the one billed as Florentino's last dance and Mourinho's return, is two months old and already reads like an emergency: two defeats and six points behind Barcelona, according to the tally circulating in the conversation. Under Xabi Alonso, the team were top and unbeaten at this stage. Under Mourinho, the story has flipped.

The immediate trigger was a defeat described as humiliating on the very day the first quarter of coverage kicked off. The string of messages left a pattern: the team only reacts once the game is already lost, the midfield does not exist, and the only one offering something different comes off the bench. "Same old story, they only started playing in the 89th", sums up one comment that captures the majority complaint.

Sharing the blame: from the boardroom to the dressing room

The first line of analysis points upward. The argument is that the owner renewed a player who no longer performs, and that the deal, far from strengthening the team, has broken a dressing room that was working. The criticism is framed in management terms: signing a winger, a full-back and a free-agent veteran every summer does not rebuild a squad, it just gives it a facelift. Some go further and describe a second presidential era that would outdo the first, the galácticos one, in mistakes.

The second line points to the bench. Mourinho comes across as a coach who has won games through epic moments —a European comeback with three second-half goals— but has built no recognizable pattern of play. The phrase that circulates most in this regard is the coach's own comment about Valverde: if he has to play in goal, he'll put on the gloves. To some it's dressing-room management; to others, proof that there is no tactical plan beyond individual will.

And a third line, the most uncomfortable one, points at the players. There is talk of a divided dressing room, of solo celebrations after decisive goals, of a €140 million striker who does not justify the investment, and of a winger whose renewal is seen as the season's founding mistake. The phrase that sums up that suspicion: "I wonder if the squad isn't setting Mourinho up".

Is refereeing the explanation or the excuse?

Here the conversation splits in two with no bridge in between. One camp argues that refereeing decisions systematically hurt Madrid: fouls not given, harsh red cards, goals disallowed after review. They cite the case of a player sent off after VAR reviewed a play to disallow a goal, something described as unprecedented since the tool was introduced. And they add that the club's official channel publishes videos comparing refereeing standards, which in turn has led to a disciplinary case against the El futbol español president for comparing that communication to Nancy Germany.

The opposing camp replies with an argument about method: not all refereeing mistakes weigh the same. A missed foul rarely decides a match; a red card or a penalty does. And they add the contrast test: if the team goes 3-0 up at half-time against a lesser opponent, refereeing stops being decisive. Their conclusion is uncomfortable for the dominant narrative: Madrid don't control games, and when they don't, any mistake becomes an excuse.

The comeback nobody celebrated

The turning point of the material is a European win secured with three second-half goals, two of them headers from a corner and one scored by a 1.60-metre player. On paper, archive material. In practice, the match exposed this Madrid side's central paradox: the team improves when the substitutes come on. The young striker who had gone months without minutes scored four goals in 43 accumulated minutes. The attacking midfielder who organizes set pieces changed the game. And the renewed winger, the one under fire, was suspended.

The reading that imposes itself is that Mourinho has the solution on the bench and the problem in the starting eleven. Also that epic moments work as a painkiller: for a week they mask a structure that remains unsolved. "For 98 percent of the teams in the world, a match like that would be the most memorable in their history; for Madrid fans it's the equivalent of getting aftershave for Christmas", wrote someone with more humour than comfort.

The context nobody disputes: the shadow of the refereeing scandal

Beneath the noise of each matchday lies a structural issue running through the whole conversation: Barcelona's payments to the vice-president of the referees' technical committee over 17 years. The debate is not about whether it peine —it is taken as fact— but about how to classify it. The argument is made that, in sporting terms, that kind of conduct carries a financial sanction, expulsion from competitions and the stripping of titles from the period in question. And it is added that UEFA has the axe ready. Nobody in the conversation closes the matter: it remains open.

What's left of the season

The consensus, if there is one, is pessimistic. People talk of five blank seasons as the likely scenario, of treating the league as Champions League training, and of the only hope being that a rival knocks Barcelona out of Europe. The question hanging in the air, unanswered: whether Florentino will show Mourinho the same patience he showed Xabi Alonso. The answer the conversation gives itself is more resignation than forecast: it depends on whether the star player is happy and dancing.