The Technical Committee of Referees (CTA) will take advantage of the resumption of the League after the international break to correct some of the problems detected during the first seven matchdays of the competition. There are two aspects that are especially concerning: the excessive caution of the VAR and the lack of determination of some referees on the pitch.

There is no contest. This is the feeling with which the 40,533 people present at the Camp Nou went home. Neither the torrential rains, nor the hurricane, nor the absences the team of Pere Romeu had –Laia Aleixandri, Kika Nazareth and Vicky López–, nor the improvement in the Real Madrid squad. Nothing could prevent another rout by the 'blaugranes' against their eternal rival (7-0), the biggest difference in a Barça-Madrid so far.

There are matches that are marked on the calendar in red, and this Sunday's is one of them. The Barça women's team returns to the Camp Nou to host Real Madrid (19:00 hours, DAZN), but is keeping an eye on the sky due to the risk of storms in Catalonia. The match, which was supposed to be played at 17:00 hours, has been postponed for two hours due to the forecast of extreme rain and the risk of flooding. The blue and red club had asked the League for the postponement, which it finally ended up granting. The Catalan entity reminds that one can access the stadium with small, foldable umbrellas, while long and rigid umbrellas are not permitted in accordance with current safety regulations.

Tranquility at Real Madrid after the medical tests that Kylian Mbappé underwent throughout this Saturday at the Valdebebas sports city. The white club has announced that the French forward is suffering from a "hyperextension of the posterior capsule of the left knee," but has not wanted to give a specific recovery timeline. The Madrid entity has limited itself to saying that he is "pending evolution," although various media outlets suggest he would only be out for two weeks.

After being turned down for years and years, Real Madrid managed to complete the signing of Kylian Mbappé in the summer of 2024. The French forward, one of the most prominent goalscorers in football, dreamed of winning the Champions League and landed in a team that a few months earlier had lifted thebig ears trophy for the 15th time. The combination of a winning club and a relentless goalscorer made people fear the worst. But, as things go in football, the invention stopped working. Except for the European Super Cup and the Intercontinental Cup, the team came up empty-handed at the same time as Barça established itself as the team to beat.

While Kylian Mbappé justified running and pressing less than Raphinha or Ousmane Dembélé because he scores "more goals" than them, Lamine Yamal, in a public appearance at the press conference prior to the Barça-Feyenoord Champions League match, or Karim Adeyemi, in an interview with this newspaper, stated that attackers must also run. "We all have to run. If you don't run, you don't win," said the winger from Rocafonda. "We know what we have to do, and if we do it all together we are, as I have said, unstoppable, both with the ball and without it. Hansi wants this from us, so we give it our all, also in the press," assessed the German sprinter.

In 1982, José Mourinho was beginning to suspect that he would not succeed as a footballer. His dream was to score goals. But he lacked talent. On every pitch, people said about him that he was just the son of Félix, his father. A man who had played more than 10 years as a goalkeeper in the First Division, in which he had won a cup with Vitória de Setúbal and had played a match with the Portuguese national team. The father was working as a coach at the time and tried to help him. In fact, he even called him up for a Rio Ave match, an act that caused a fight with the president, who accused the father of wanting to nepotistically slot in a son without talent. The fight was so notorious that both the father and the son ended up being fired. To understand José Mourinho's mind, one must understand the wounds, defeats, and frustrations that he carried for many years.

The tantrum that Madrid is throwing over the referees is the most apotheotic exercise in cynicism seen in recent footballing times. They are the footballing incarnation of eternal Spain, the señorío turned into a shirt, the Cid Campeador who scores winning goals in the ninetieth minute and beyond. They give interviews with the 15 European Cups behind them, they have more Leagues than anyone else and a president who is a de facto power of the Ibex who hires and fires journalists. To have it all, they even have the crown presiding over their crest. They have everything in their favor. They have always had everything in their favor (I made my debut at the Camp Nou with Guruceta). And yet, their TV channel states that "the only thing missing is a circular that allows Madrid's rivals to take the field armed with revolvers".

The performance of Miguel Ángel Ortiz Arias in the Madrid derby will have consequences. The choice of a referee born in Madrid to officiate the duel between Atlético de Madrid and Real Madrid was a bet by the Referee Committee with the goal of validating the elimination of the territoriality criterion.

I suspect that the stands of the Camp Nou will not take long to chant "Mourinho, stay" with an effervescence similar to the one with which they already sing "Raphinha, captain". It will not surprise me, to be honest, because the new stage of the Portuguese coach at Real Madrid looks like it will end fatally. Fourth in the standings, six points behind Barça after seven matchdays played, without a game, soul, footballing solutions or self-criticism and already pointing to malevolent conspiracies in the shadows, it sounds like an unbeatable path to crashing into the ravine just as it begins. And there is already a date for the show: on October 25th at nine o'clock at night, Mourinho's Madrid visits the Camp Nou.

José Mourinho's Real Madrid began the season with an agonizing victory on the field of Espanyol, in stoppage time. After two routs against Real Sociedad and Málaga, they suffered their first defeat on the field of Betis and struggled to beat Inter, by the minimum, in the Champions League debut. They returned to rout against Rayo, but later achieved a new triumph at the buzzer on the field of Elche, in stoppage time. Too many doubts against inferior rivals, both in individual quality and budget. Finally, against a top-level rival, they added the second defeat of the campaign in the derby on the field of Atlético de Madrid. Leaving aside the refereeing controversy, the numbers say that the white club is six points behind Barça in the League and has worse numbers than last season: Xabi Alonso had achieved 18 points. Mou has 15.

Real Madrid has lost the derby against Atlético de Madrid (2-1) and is now six points behind Barça. The whites played the entire second half with ten players due to the expulsion of Huijsen, who committed a penalty on Giuliano Simeone. José Mourinho, however, complained about two red cards that Atlético de Madrid players did not receive. "The story of the match is here, these are two clear red cards," said the Portuguese coach at the beginning of the press conference while showing a paper on which two actions of the match could be seen. The Real Madrid coach protested about two tackles; one by Kang-in Lee and a second one by Cuti Romero on Bellingham, in which Ortiz Arias showed a yellow card to the Argentine center-back after reviewing the play on VAR due to a case of mistaken identity.

Only seven matchdays of the League have been played, but Barça already has a six-point lead over Real Madrid. While Hansi Flick's side wins, enjoys itself, and convinces on the pitch –on Saturday with a new triumph at Sevilla's ground (1-3)–, José Mourinho cannot seem to find the key to making a team play that has a lot of quality, but does not know how to translate it into the game. On Sunday, they fell at the Metropolitano and suffered their second defeat in the League. Atlético de Madrid took advantage of a penalty and a sending off of Huijsen to take the lead on the scoreboard, and the final 2-1 could have been wider if Courtois and Rüdiger had not prevented it.

Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior and Ibrahima Konaté have ended up complicating the Ceuta crisis even further. The three Real Madrid players had a “gesture towards the immigrants who lost their lives and who live in very harsh conditions,” as explained by Mbappé, the only one of the three who, for now, has commented on the act of rolling up their shirts in support of Ceuta before the match against Elche. Although he also expressed his solidarity with the people of Ceuta, Mbappé said that he “did not want to prioritize suffering.” The great star of the white team, who has Algerian-Cameroonian roots and grew up in the suburbs of Paris, maintains a stance diametrically opposed to that of the Spanish nationalism of which his club is the greatest exponent, since he shows solidarity with immigrants, both dead and alive, to the same extent as with the people of Ceuta. In any case, he does not seem to regret his gesture, despite the avalanche of adverse reactions it has generated.

Just as last weekend in Spain right-wing people were in favor of Madrid and Formula 1 and left-wingers against it, now the same thing has happened again with the gesture of the Real Madrid stars who did not want to wear the solidarity shirt with Ceuta. While the right-wing press is crucifying them and practically demanding their public stoning, the progressive press has come to the players' rescue. The newspaper El País publishes this Friday an editorial sympathetic to at least one of the players involved, Kylian Mbappé, who is also the only one who has given explanations, in this case to the newspaper As, which, oh surprise, also belongs to the Prisa group. The most curious thing is that when this newspaper published the full interview with the player, it omitted this part.

The eternal Spain is furious with two Real Madrid stars who have refused to support the good heart of the Valencian Association of Entrepreneurs (they have their website in Spanish), which apparently is very worried about Ceuta.

In Madrid, they still have not digested the act of rebellion by Vinícius, Mbappé, and Konaté in refusing to wear a solidarity shirt for the people of Ceuta. So much so that now they are starting to fire, by elevation, at Florentino Pérez. The best example is an article signed by Kike Marín – a sports journalist with long experience who has worked for Mark andAs– a El Confidencial titled "The offense of Mbappé, Vinícius and Konaté in Ceuta, another symptom of the lack of control at Real Madrid". The journalist points to one of Pérez's main advisors, the Moroccan-born Anas Laghari, as being responsible for this lack of control and for some decisions that are difficult for Madrid fans to understand, such as the low profile the club has adopted regarding the Ceuta cause. "The simple fact that the honorary president of Real Madrid, José Martínez Pirri, even if it is from Ceuta it should embarrass Mbappé, Vinícius and Konaté", he writes. "It seems that the club is slipping out of Florentino's hands", he concludes.

The controversy involving Vinícius, Mbappé, and Konaté has put the focus on the "Todos somos caballas" campaign. The three Real Madrid players hid the slogan on the shirt before the match against Elche, while other teams, such as Villarreal, Betis, Elche, and Levante, did wear it. Barça, on the other hand, did not wear it in the match against the Granota side.

Today is a day when culers, and anti-Madridistas in general, can sit back and eat popcorn while the White House implodes. The refusal of Mbappé, Vinícius, and Konaté to wear a solidarity shirt with Ceuta before the match against Elche has sparked an authentic pitched battle on social media and has fractured Madridismo into two irreconcilable camps. On one hand, there are those who consider these three players traitors to Spain and to the values of the club that pays them, and who, therefore, must be expelled from Real Madrid. And then there are those who consider that politics and sports should not be mixed and downplay it. What is happening? Well, the former are the ones who identify most with the stances of the PP and Vox, and accuse the latter (and the players themselves) of playing into Pedro Sánchez's hands. This is how, for example, Zabala de la Serna writes in El Mundo.

Trouble is brewing at Real Madrid. José Mourinho will have to put out another fire burning around his two big stars, Vinícius and Kylian Mbappé, who during the pre-match between Elche and Real Madrid did not want to show the support shirt for Ceuta that the footballers of both teams were wearing. The Frenchman and the Brazilian wore it rolled up almost to their chests, so that the slogan "Todos somos caballas" was cut off. Furthermore, they took off the shirt before the protocol greeting with the Elche players, while the rest of the footballers from both teams kept it on until after the greeting. The Frenchman Konaté also did not want to wear it. Sources from the white club state that they will not be reprimanded for anything, as a dressing room with different sensitivities is respected, but many fans and journalists who follow the white club have already criticized them. Also some politicians, such as those from Vox, who have branded them as "three millionaires who live in Spain" but do not respect it. The PP spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, stated: "I think it is a humanitarian issue and they will have to explain why they did what they did. Honestly, it made me feel quite embarrassed, but perhaps it didn't for them".