Real Madrid Cruise Past Valencia 3-0 to Draw Level With Barcelona as Mbappé Scores in Seventh Straight Game

Real Madrid moved level on points with La Liga leaders Barcelona on Saturday night, cruising to a 3-0 win at struggling Valencia as Federico Valverde, Arda Güler and Kylian Mbappé all found the net at Mestalla.

The victory, Madrid’s eighth in a row in all competitions, took José Mourinho’s side to 30 points from 12 matches, the same total as Barcelona, who sit ahead only on goal difference having played one game fewer. Valencia, meanwhile, remained second-bottom of the table with nine points, one point from safety, after a night that ended with their captain sent off and their supporters jeering the visitors’ star striker.

Valverde broke the deadlock in the 28th minute with a fierce half-volley from the edge of the penalty area, Güler doubled the lead eight minutes later from close range, and Mbappé completed the scoring in the 75th minute, rounding goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski and tapping into an empty net after being released by Güler. It was Mbappé’s 13th league goal of the season and his 17th in 16 appearances in all competitions, and he has now scored in his last seven matches for the club.

Valencia captain José Gayà was dismissed four minutes after Mbappé’s goal for a fierce tackle on the Frenchman, leaving the hosts to play out the closing stages with ten men. According to Reuters, the result leaves Real behind Barcelona only on goal difference, with the champions visiting third-placed Atlético Madrid on Sunday evening.

A Night That Began in Silence

Before a ball was kicked, Mestalla fell silent. Real Madrid and Valencia players stood for a minute’s silence in memory of Jesús de Miguel, the Tenerife striker who died on Tuesday after a collision with Andorra’s goalkeeper during a Spanish second division match on Monday. Matches across Spain were stopped for a minute’s applause in the ninth minute, his shirt number, and De Miguel’s funeral had taken place on Thursday, attended by around 400 mourners including Spain coach Luis de la Fuente and Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez.

According to AFP, Spain’s footballers’ union had asked for all weekend matches to be paused as a mark of respect, but most games went ahead, with the tributes observed instead before kick-off and in the ninth minute. In Tenerife, fans and players gathered at the stadium for a memorial and farewell, where captain Enric Gallego said in an emotional speech: “You knew what it meant to work towards a common goal, you understood football as something that went far beyond oneself. Just a few days ago, we were sharing all of that with you — today we have to speak of you in the past tense. It’s terribly unfair.”

The sombre opening gave way to a match that Madrid controlled almost from the start, even if the first genuine alarm belonged to the home side. Valencia midfielder Guido Rodríguez had a goal disallowed for offside before Mourinho’s team took control, a let-off that underlined how thin the margin between encouragement and punishment can be for a side sitting 19th in the table.

Valverde’s Thunderbolt Sets the Tone

Madrid’s opener arrived in the 28th minute and it carried the signature of their captain. Mbappé’s free-kick from a promising position was slammed straight into the Valencia wall, but the loose ball sat up invitingly for Valverde, who drilled a trademark half-volley into the bottom-left corner from the edge of the area. It was the kind of strike that has become the Uruguayan’s calling card, and it eased whatever tension remained in the visiting side.

Eight minutes later the lead was doubled, and this time the architects were Madrid’s youngest creators. Jude Bellingham broke down the left and drove towards the byline before putting the ball into the box, and when his cross was deflected kindly into Güler’s path, the Turkish midfielder converted from close range. The goal was Güler’s reward for a lively first half, and it put Madrid firmly in the driving seat before the interval.

Valencia goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski kept the scoreline respectable for a long stretch of the second half, saving from Güler, Mbappé and Bellingham as Madrid pressed for the third goal that would kill the contest. Mbappé, in particular, was thwarted repeatedly, taking six shots in the match and seeing Dimitrievski deny him more than once, while the home crowd mocked him with chants that only seemed to sharpen his focus.

Eventually, in the 75th minute, the Frenchman produced the moment the match had been waiting for. Güler played a perfectly weighted pass inside, Mbappé darted onto it, rounded the advancing Dimitrievski and squeezed the ball into the unguarded net. It was his 13th league goal of the campaign, moving him to within two of Raphinha at the top of the scoring charts, and his 17th goal in 16 games in all competitions. He has now scored in seven consecutive appearances for Real Madrid.

The evening then turned sour for the hosts. Gayà, their captain, was sent off in the 79th minute for a late sliding foul on Mbappé, a decision that drew no serious complaint and left Valencia with ten men for the remainder of the game. “We knew it would be a tough game, facing Madrid at their best moment of the season,” Gayà told DAZN afterwards. “We tried in the second half, changed our system… but we couldn’t get into the game.”

The statistics told the same story as the scoreline. According to LiveScore, Real Madrid registered 19 shots, 11 of them on target, and created six big chances, while Valencia managed just two shots on goal and an expected-goals figure of 0.16. It was, by every measure, a dominant away performance, and it extended Madrid’s winning run to eight matches in all competitions, including five straight league victories, as the season heads into the November international break.

Mourinho: “This Team Smells Good”

Mourinho, whose side last lost to Atlético Madrid on 20 September, was in reflective mood after the match, praising his players’ composure through both the good and the bad stretches of the season. “From my experience, this team smells good,” the Madrid coach told reporters, according to AFP.

“We never had chaos, we’ve been calm, we understand why we lost that game,” Mourinho said, referring to the September defeat at the Metropolitano, after which the winning run began. “I always fight for people to be balanced in the good moments, I always tell them that winning games in a team like Real Madrid, you can’t be taken up in a whirlwind of joy, winning games at Real Madrid has to be normality.”

It was a characteristically Mourinho message, equal parts warning and confidence, and it came with the title race now balanced on a knife edge. Before this weekend, Barcelona led La Liga with 30 points from 11 matches, Atlético Madrid were second on 28, and Real Madrid third on 27. Madrid’s win has drawn them level with the leaders, and everything now depends on Sunday’s meeting between Barcelona and Atlético at the Metropolitano, which kicks off at 9pm local time.

Mourinho had already made his feelings about that fixture clear before the Valencia match. “Atlético vs Barcelona? I’d like both of them to lose,” he said, in comments shared by transfer expert Fabrizio Romano on Friday. “Unfortunately, that’s not possible. Points will inevitably be dropped, and that’s the best possible news.” A draw in that match would suit Madrid best, lifting them to second place on goal difference and keeping them within touching distance of the summit. A Barcelona win would restore the champions’ three-point cushion, while an Atlético victory would put Diego Simeone’s side level with Madrid and leave Barcelona a point behind the top two.

Thriving Without Vinícius

One of the more striking features of Madrid’s run has been that it has been achieved without Vinícius Júnior, who was serving the final game of a four-match ban at Mestalla. The Brazilian winger’s absence might once have been expected to blunt Madrid’s attack, but the opposite has happened: the team has won heavily and consistently in his absence, putting heavy pressure on Barcelona and winning the Clásico at Camp Nou on 25 October without him.

That 2-1 victory over Barcelona, in which Mbappé scored twice either side of Raphinha’s equaliser, ended the champions’ nine-game winning start to the season and cut the gap at the top from six points to three. It was, in retrospect, the night the title race changed shape. Barcelona had won their first nine league matches, collecting 27 points from a possible 27 and scoring 39 league goals before the Clásico, and they looked capable of disappearing over the horizon. Instead, Mourinho’s side weathered the pressure, exploited the transitions and left Catalonia with a result that has framed everything since.

Mbappé’s form has been the engine of that recovery. The Frenchman finished second to Harry Kane in the voting for the 2026 Ballon d’Or, announced in London on 26 October, but his goalscoring since then has been relentless: 13 league goals already, two behind Raphinha in the race for the Pichichi Trophy, and 17 in 16 games across all competitions. His strike at Mestalla was his seventh consecutive scoring appearance, a run that has turned the Frenchman into the most reliable finisher in Spanish football at precisely the moment Madrid needed one most.

Güler’s emergence has been the other half of the story. The 21-year-old scored one and assisted another at Mestalla, and his combination play with Bellingham and Mbappé has given Madrid a different kind of threat, less dependent on individual brilliance and more on movement and interchange. Valverde, meanwhile, continues to supply the leadership and the long-range goals, his half-volley on Saturday following a similar strike in the previous match, according to match reports.

Valencia’s Crisis Deepens

For Valencia, the defeat was another chapter in a season that is sliding towards crisis. Los Che are 19th in the table with nine points from 12 matches, one point from safety, and they have now lost at home to the side that may define the title race. Their coach, Javier Aguirre, watched his team produce an expected-goals figure of 0.16, the lowest of any side in the division this weekend, and lose their captain to a red card that summed up a night of frustration.

The disallowed goal for Rodríguez in the opening stages will haunt them, because it was the one moment when the match might have taken a different course. Instead, within half an hour they were two goals down and chasing a game against opponents who have not lost in seven weeks. The second half brought no relief: Dimitrievski’s saves kept the score down, but Madrid’s dominance was total, and by the time Gayà walked off, the contest had long since been decided.

Valencia’s problems are structural as much as they are sporting. A club that once challenged for the title now finds itself in the relegation zone in November, with a squad that has struggled to score and a defence that has been breached too easily. The international break offers Aguirre two weeks to work with his players, but it also offers two weeks for the pressure to build, and the visit of the teams around them in the table will soon become must-win fixtures rather than routine ones.

Elsewhere on Saturday, new Espanyol coach Eder Sarabia’s side were held to a goalless home draw by Deportivo La Coruña, Osasuna snatched a late 1-1 draw against Athletic Bilbao, and Racing Santander came from behind to beat Málaga 2-1. But none of those results carried the weight of the night at Mestalla, where the title race and the relegation battle were both redrawn in the space of 90 minutes.

Analysis: Why It Matters

The title race is now a genuine three-way fight

When Barcelona won their first nine matches, the season looked like it might become a procession. Hansi Flick’s defending champions had scored 39 league goals before the Clásico, Raphinha was running away with the scoring charts, and the gap to Real Madrid stood at six points. Three weeks later, the picture is unrecognisable. Madrid are level on points with Barcelona, Atlético are two points behind both of them, and the top three are separated by nothing at all in practical terms. Sunday’s meeting at the Metropolitano is no longer a match Barcelona can afford to treat as routine: a defeat would leave them third, behind two rivals who have both beaten them or matched them this season. The Clásico result on 25 October did not just cut the gap, it changed the psychology of the race, and Madrid’s win at Mestalla has now converted that psychology into arithmetic. With 26 matches still to play after this weekend, the season is far from decided, but the idea that any one club would run away with it is gone.

Mbappé has become Madrid’s most reliable weapon

There is a temptation to treat a goalscorer’s run of form as a statistical curiosity, but Mbappé’s seven consecutive scoring appearances tell a deeper story about this Real Madrid side. The Frenchman has 13 league goals and 17 in 16 games in all competitions, and he is scoring in every kind of match: the late winner at Camp Nou, the tap-in at Mestalla, the goals that have kept Madrid in touch while Vinícius Júnior has been suspended. What matters is not just the volume but the timing. Madrid’s winning run began after the defeat to Atlético on 20 September, and Mbappé has scored in every match of it, providing the cutting edge that turns dominance into victories. The comparison that will follow him now is with the great goalscoring seasons of Madrid’s past, and the question is whether he can sustain a pace that would put him in the conversation for the Pichichi Trophy and, beyond that, for the individual honours he narrowly missed when Kane won the Ballon d’Or in October. For now, the numbers speak plainly: when Madrid need a goal, they have a player who delivers one.

Mourinho’s calm is the story behind the streak

José Mourinho’s post-match comments at Mestalla were more revealing than the scoreline. “We never had chaos, we’ve been calm, we understand why we lost that game,” he said of the September defeat to Atlético, and the remark captures the defining feature of Madrid’s season so far: a refusal to panic. After that defeat, many managers would have changed systems, dropped players or chased a statement result. Mourinho did none of those things. He kept the same structure, trusted the same players and let the winning run build, match by match, until it reached eight games. His warning that “winning games at Real Madrid has to be normality” is the other side of the same coin: a reminder that the streak itself is not the achievement, and that the standard is the title. That is a message aimed as much at his own dressing room as at the outside world, and it is the kind of message that has defined Mourinho’s best seasons. Whether it can carry Madrid through a three-way title race, a Champions League campaign and the pressure of the Bernabéu remains to be seen, but the early evidence is that his players believe it.

Madrid have learned to win without Vinícius

The most surprising aspect of Madrid’s run is that it has been built without one of their most important players. Vinícius Júnior’s four-match ban could have derailed the season; instead, it has revealed the depth of Mourinho’s squad. Güler has stepped into the creative void, Bellingham has driven from midfield, Valverde has supplied goals from deep, and Mbappé has carried the scoring burden almost alone. The Clásico win at Camp Nou, achieved without the Brazilian, was the proof of concept, and the win at Mestalla was the confirmation. That does not mean Vinícius is dispensable: his pace and unpredictability remain qualities that no other player in the squad can replicate, and his return after the international break will give Mourinho a different kind of problem, the problem of fitting a star back into a team that has learned to function without him. But the lesson of the last month is that Madrid are no longer a team that collapses when one player is missing, and that is a significant change from the side that lost to Atlético in September.

Valencia are running out of time and excuses

At the other end of the table, the numbers are stark. Nine points from 12 matches, 19th place, an expected-goals figure of 0.16 at home, and a captain sent off in frustration. Valencia’s season is not yet lost — they are only a point from safety, and the international break gives Aguirre time to regroup — but the trend is alarming. The club’s problems have been building for years, a combination of financial constraint, squad turnover and managerial instability, and they are now manifesting on the pitch in the form of a team that cannot score and cannot keep the ball. The disallowed goal for Rodríguez was a reminder that fine margins decide matches at the bottom of the table, but so was the fact that Valencia created almost nothing else. If the side cannot find a way to threaten opponents at home, the relegation battle will become a fight for survival rather than a mid-season wobble, and the two weeks of the international break will be spent under a scrutiny that Aguirre and his players can ill afford.

What to Watch Next

1. Atlético Madrid vs Barcelona, Sunday 8 November: The match of the weekend, at the Metropolitano at 9pm local time. A Barcelona win restores their three-point cushion at the top; a draw suits Real Madrid best and would lift them to second on goal difference; an Atlético win puts Simeone’s side level with Madrid and drops Barcelona to third. Mourinho’s wish that both sides could lose will not come true, but someone will drop points.
2. Mbappé’s scoring streak: Seven consecutive scoring appearances and counting. After the international break, the question is whether the Frenchman can extend the run towards double figures and close the two-goal gap to Raphinha in the Pichichi race. His 17 goals in 16 games is the best return of any player in Spain this season.
3. Vinícius Júnior’s return: The Brazilian’s four-match ban ends after this weekend, and Mourinho must decide how to reintegrate him into a side that has won eight in a row without him. Expect the winger to start after the break, but the balance of the attack that has worked so well at Mestalla and at Camp Nou will be under scrutiny.
4. Valencia’s response after the break: Two weeks for Aguirre to work with his squad, and a captain in Gayà who will be suspended after his red card. The fixtures after the international break will define whether Valencia’s season is a relegation fight or a recovery, and the club’s hierarchy will be watching closely.
5. The international break itself: With the league pausing for two weeks, the fitness of the players who leave for national duty will be as important as the results. Madrid’s stars are spread across a dozen national teams, and any injury to Mbappé, Bellingham or Valverde would test the depth that has carried the side through the last month.

Sources

• Reuters — Real Madrid sweep aside Valencia to move level with Barcelona
• AFP — Real Madrid beat Valencia as Spanish football honours De Miguel
• FotMob — Valencia 0-3 Real Madrid: Mourinho’s men keep pressure on Barcelona and Atletico
• LiveScore — Real Madrid Player Ratings vs. Valencia: Los Blancos Cruise, Apply Pressure to Leaders
• SportsLeo — Barcelona vs Real Madrid: Mourinho Hands Flick First Defeat
• SoccerDino — Mourinho Praises Alexander-Arnold After Real Madrid Victory