Welcome to a new feature at Barca Blaugranes called “Rival Watch”: this weekly round-up will look at Barcelona’s main rivals in La Liga and what they’ve been up to in the last seven days.
Real Madrid continued their perfect start to the season on Saturday when they beat Espanyol at the Santiago Bernabéu thanks to a fantastic long-range strike by Éder Militão and another goal for Kylian Mbappé, who is now up to 7 goals in 6 games in all competitions after his double from penalty spot to beat Olympique
Marseille in their Champions League debut in midweek.
Xabi Alonso is off to a solid start in his first season in charge, and even though Los Blancos haven’t looked particularly impressive so far, there’s a competitive spirit and defensive solidity that allowed them to win two straight matches with 10 men and will continue to keep them afloat while Alonso experiments with different lineups and formations.
Mbappé has been the bright spot so far, but Álvaro Carreras has been excellent at left-back and Franco Mastantuono looks like a real player despite his age. Jude Bellingham returned from injury at the weekend and will add even more depth to a strong squad, and this team looks really tough to beat right now.
Things are not looking too good for the other big team in the capital, however, as Atlético Madrid dropped two points away at Mallorca in another uninspiring performance from Diego Simeone’s team. Julián Alvarez missed a penalty in the first half and was substituted early in the second, and was seen mouthing the words “it’s always me” as he was taken off once again.
The vibes don’t look too good, but just like they did against Liverpool in the Champions League in midweek Atleti kept fighting and even after going down to 10 men thanks to a silly red card by Alexander Sorloth, they still managed to take the lead through Conor Gallagher.
But just like they did against Liverpool, Atlético couldn’t hold on to the result and conceded a late goal as Vedat Muriqi headed home a cross from former Barça youngster Jan Virgili to rescue a draw for the home team.
It looks as though coming away with a point in a tough road game with 10 men is not a bad result for Atleti, but the performance was once again very poor and they’re already 9 points behind Real Madrid and 7 points behind second-place Barça with just six points from their first five games, and everything you’d associate with a Simeone team is slowly disappearing: the defending is a mess, the midfield looks weak, and Alvarez is clearly uncomfortable with his role after an amazing debut season last year.
You can always bet on Simeone to turn things around, but the expectations were really high after a busy summer of high-profile signings and Atlético have been extremely underwhelming so far.
