Paper trail of protests: José Mourinho plays the hits in Madrid derby defeat | Sid Lowe

There were many questions to emerge from the Madrid derby, which Atlético won 2-1 in front of 70,514 very, very noisy people at the Metropolitano on Sunday afternoon, even if not the one José Mourinho was asking. Like: what year is this? Or: what was Dean Huijsen thinking? Why always Arda? And whatever happened to Vinícius Júnior? How come Koke is still the best? And how long before Giuliano Simeone actually bursts, his atlético insides exploding across the pitch? Above all though, you were left wondering: where did Real Madrid’s manager get a printer from? And how did he get the bloody thing to work?

You could still hear the singing outside when Mourinho turned up in the press room, laid down his glasses and sat. In his hand was a piece of paper. Thirteen years after his last derby, on the Santiago Bernabéu night when Madrid lost the Copa del Rey final and a 13-year unbeaten run against their neighbours, Diego Simeone had defeated him again. The stage was new – this stadium didn’t exist then – but his adversary was somehow still the same man, still dressed in black, and the scene was a bit like old times, a classic. Mourinho unfolded the paper and held it up. “We can save ourselves the bother of the press conference,” he said, “because the story is right here.”

Printed on the back side of an Atlético info sheet were two screen grabs from the first half, one on top of the other. Someone had been sent to run off a copy, some footballing Natalie Harp or the manager himself coming back with a couple of gory, freeze-framed, full-colour closeups of tackles. The first showed Cuti Romero’s studs catching Jude Bellingham’s knee; the second showed Kang-in Lee on Fede Valverde’s ankle. Both should have been red, Mourinho insisted, and he was probably right, but neither was. It should have been nine against 11, he said; instead, it was 11 against 10 because early in the second half Huijsen dragged Giuliano Simeone down for the penalty that gave Atlético the lead and got him sent off. And that, Mourinho said, was that. End of story.

Real Madrid’s Dean Huijsen was sent off after conceding a penalty to Atlético’s Giuliano Simeone during the derby. Photograph: Juan Carlos Lucas/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock

At which point he could have got up and gone, saved everyone the bother of the press conference like he promised, but no one wants that, least of all his president, and that’s the bit he does best so he carried on. Five questions he faced. Four of them were about the referee; so was the answer to the one that was not about the referee. And when he had finished, leaving the paper there for Diego Simeone to have a look at, most agreed: now Mourinho is back, and he’s playing the greatest hits, a hint of the nostalgia that had brought him “home” in the first place, a hint of the conspiratorial mindset too, echoes of him reading out 13 “errors” made by the referee Clos Gómez 16 years earlier.

The “poor ref” – just 41, not an international, and named in advance rather than 24 hours before kick-off – couldn’t handle the pressure, which was “like the 1980s”, Mourinho claimed. The coach, who had already revived his famous “por qué” (why?) line after they lost at Betis, also ran through a list of decisions made by the referee in the VAR room, Daniel Trujillo Suárez – a man supposedly with history – which “make you laugh”. There was talk of “strange things” happening. He insisted he didn’t want to think ill of officials, didn’t want to say the league has been “set up” for others to win, didn’t want to think that these were anything other than honest mistakes – of course not. He congratulated the referees’ committee and vowed to fight for the title despite being six points behind already – if they let us. “I thought I would come back to find a different league to the one I left, but [at Madrid] they told me not and explained why not,” he said.

What Mourinho didn’t say was anything really about the actual football, which might be because there wasn’t much football. The cards might have conditioned the game – of course they might – and he was entitled to insist on the reds, although you could debate Romero’s. But it was hard to avoid the feeling that Mourinho purposely missed a deeper point and revealed a deeper reality, that there could be no escaping the reality he sought to escape: that Madrid are just not very good. That too many questions were avoided and another could be asked: is that it? There was little evidence to back his brief claim that they played well in the first half and were set up to win it in the second – how? – and even if true, it pointed to something limited: wait, counter and it will come.

With the players Madrid have, often it will, but Atlético were aware of that, planned for it; they were aware too of where the damage could be done, overloading Madrid’s left. Simeone’s side took more than twice as many shots and had two-thirds of the possession. They had done so cautiously, it is true, but they, not Madrid, had exercised control. Mourinho’s team had offered little before the potential reds, their first shot on target coming on 39 minutes and from 25 yards, and even less after the actual red, Atlético’s half unoccupied for most of the period except by a pigeon. With Guler withdrawn, their reaction didn’t exist. It’s not easy with 10 men, but there was barely a spark. Even the goal they did get in the 89th minute was an isolated moment and, for all the nerves at the Metropolitano, was followed by more chances for Atlético.

None of which would matter so much as a one-off, but these flaws were familiar. Madrid needed last-minute Carlos Espí goals to beat Espanyol and Elche and they’re still six points off the top already. It’s not even close to definitive just seven weeks in and Madrid’s rebuilding process has only just begun, but basic issues they have faced for the last two years remain unaddressed; Fabio Capello’s implausible 2006-07 league title win is the only time Barcelona have ever had a lead that big at the top of the table and lost it. Hansi Flick’s team are flying; and right now you wouldn’t trust Madrid to take advantage even if they did slip up. Claude Makélélé summed them up as: “Nothing, nothing, nothing.” Which leaves only this: a print-out and paranoia, a campaign. Some things don’t change. Some people don’t change much, either.

Jonathan David (right) score the winner in a Madrid derby which Atlético dominated. Photograph: Alberto Gardin/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

Some, though, do. The last time these two coaches met in a derby, Simeone’s son Giuliano was told he was too little to go to the final so he hung scarves around the living room and watched it from home with his brothers instead. It was late, it was a school night, and he was only 10. He is 23 now and these days he plays for them, a bundle of intensity going at it the way a fan would, and on the day these two “colleagues of war” – as Mourinho called them – met again 13 years later he decided the derby, forcing the penalty for the first and setting up the second. There is some footage somewhere of Giuliano as a ballboy racing up the touchline and leaping into his father’s arms, celebrating wildly when Atlético scored against Madrid. A decade on, another derby day, and it happened again, only this time it was his dad sprinting up the line towards him.

Talking points

“We give him the ball, he scores the goals,” Fermín López said. Over and over and over again. Raphinha, who is filling in at centre forward, has now scored 12 league goals in just seven games, plus two more in the Champions League. He is five ahead of anyone else already. On Saturday night he scored an outrageously good hat-trick, the movement every inch the No 9, the touch and finishing at ridiculous speed all his, as Barcelona beat Sevilla 3-1. Sevilla went a goal up and were as good as anyone against Flick’s side so far this season but in the end just couldn’t live with them, coach Luis García calling them “stratospheric”. That’s seven wins from seven (eight from eight in all competitions), and 31 goals already, the captain leading the way. And not just with the goals, but with everything, taking everyone on a wild intense ride with him. Raphinha says that Lamine Yamal should win the Ballon d’Or but right now there’s no one quite like him anywhere. That said, Lamine Yamal was absurd at the Pizjuan.

At the end of their 0-0 draw with Athletic, Alavés goalkeeper Antonio Sivera walked off saying: “At last, at last!” His record was, he said, “ridiculous” but now at last he had done it. A European champion at U21 level, he is 30 now, and he had just saved the first penalty of his entire career.

“When I played football as a kid in Croatia, everyone wants to play in one of Europe’s top five leagues and on my list Spain was bottom, but in the end it seems like Osasuna and La Liga is my place: God’s path is different to mine,” said Ante Budimir on Saturday, after a lovely chest-and-volley goal took him to 100 in Spain.

Speaking of which, what a way to celebrate the 100th birthday of your home.