Real Madrid’s 0-3 victory over Racing Santander on Sunday was the team’s fourth consecutive win in La Liga, taking José Mourinho’s side to 27 points through the first 11 matches. That marks the 17th time in 96 seasons in Spain’s first division that Madrid has managed 27 or more points at this early stage.
Mourinho has been manager on three of those 17 occasions. His Madrid team recorded 29 points through 11 matches in 2010/11 and totaled 28 points through 11 matchdays on the way to a record-setting
100-point season in 2011/12. Despite being in charge for less than 5% of Madrid’s seasons in La Liga, Mourinho has overseen nearly a fifth of the club’s best starts in Spain’s top flight—a testament to his ability to get the team functioning quickly. In fact, if we look at the last 35 La Liga seasons, Madrid has managed 27+ points through 11 matches nine times, a third of which have come with the Portuguese maestro at the helm.
Madrid has scored 28 times through the first 11 league matches, equaling the 28 goals recorded under Carlo Ancelotti in the same period of the 2022/23 season. You have to go back to 2016/17—when Madrid scored 31 times in its first 11 matches, the last season Cristiano Ronaldo was available to start a La Liga campaign—to find a better goal-scoring start. To further illustrate Madrid’s strong form in attack, the team is creating an average of 4 big chances per match in La Liga this season, the most through the first 11 matches since it averaged 4.2 in 2017/18 (though Madrid that season had yet to face either Barcelona or Atlético Madrid at a similar point).
Curiously, in two of the three seasons in which Madrid logged its best starts through the first 11 matches—10 wins and 1 draw in each—the club ultimately failed to lift the La Liga trophy. The 1991/92 campaign saw the club open with 10 wins and 1 draw under Serbian manager Radomir Antić, with Madrid’s first defeat not arriving until the 16th league match against Atlético Madrid. Antić was fired that January despite Madrid holding a 7-point lead; club president Ramón Mendoza stated publicly that he was unhappy with the team’s unconvincing style of play.
In 2022/23, Ancelotti’s men managed 10 victories and one draw through 11 matches in Spain’s top flight, with Madrid not tasting defeat until the 13th match, a 3-2 loss to Rayo Vallecano at Vallecas. That match will be remembered for the continuous fouls on Vinícius Júnior—with and without the ball—that went unpunished for Rayo’s players.
Madrid did manage to win La Liga in 1968/69 under legendary manager Miguel Muñoz after starting league play with 10 wins and 1 draw, losing only once all season. That defeat came against Elche, 0-1, in the 28th match of a 30-game league competition. It was the only match Amancio Amaro—Pichichi that season—missed in league play.
