Huijsen's Red Card Costs Mourinho's Real Madrid the Derby

Atlético de Madrid beat Real Madrid 2-1 in the Madrid derby on 20/09/2026, matchday 7 of LaLiga, and the game turned before the half really ended: in the 49th minute, defender Dean Huijsen picked up a yellow card for a foul on Giuliano Simeone inside the box and, in the 51st, after a VAR review, saw it upgraded to red. With an extra man and a penalty in their favor, Atlético made it 2-0 within minutes, through Grimaldo's spot kick and Jonathan David's goal, and managed the lead to the final whistle. José Mourinho's side pulled one back late, in the 89th minute, through Rüdiger, but this is not a story about a tight scoreline: it is about what a red card in the 51st minute does to the structure of a team that already had no room to spare, on the pitch or in ideas.

The move started with a long ball from David Hancko, springing out of Atlético's build-up on the left, into Giuliano Simeone's run through the right half-space, right on the seam between Real Madrid's full-back and centre-back. Huijsen, who had been defending high and aggressively since kickoff, had to choose between tracking the run all the way or cutting it short by force: he grabbed Giuliano's shirt just as the forward crossed into the box. Miguel Ángel Ortiz Arias pointed to the spot and showed a yellow card on the pitch; called to the monitor by VAR, he upgraded it to a straight red. It is the classic read on a high line against a team that attacks in behind: the centre-back bets on his own pace, mistimes the tackle, and the foul that stops the immediate goal also removes a player from the pitch for the rest of the afternoon.

Going down to ten men just as the second half is getting started is close to the worst possible moment to concede a sending-off: there is too much time left for the opponent to work the extra man calmly, and not enough legs left for the shorthanded side to reorganise afterwards. Real Madrid dropped into an improvised back five and gave up the high press that had been the trademark of Mourinho's start in LaLiga. Atlético read the moment with cold precision: Grimaldo slotted the penalty without rushing, making it 1-0, and had the second soon after. Against a back line reduced to ten men and organised in a hurry, the third-man run stops being a resource and becomes routine: numerical superiority turning directly into space, not just possession.

Goal by goal: how Atlético settled the derby in six minutes

The second goal came from a combination that sums up what a team with an extra man can do against a defence organised on the fly. In the 59th minute, Giuliano Simeone crossed and Jonathan David only had to finish. Against ten defenders, even a well-drilled ten, there is always a free man at the right moment: what changes with numerical superiority is not the quality of the move, it is the time the attacking side has to pick the best option. Real Madrid never had enough cover to close both flanks at once.

Rüdiger's headed goal in the 89th minute is more symptom than reaction: a centre-back finding the net that late usually means the coach has thrown everything into the box, trading structure for set pieces and crosses. It worked once, against an Atlético side already defending the result with an extra man and the game all but settled. It is not a tactical approach that holds up for 90 full minutes: it is the only bet left for a team behind on the scoreboard with no time to rebuild a clean build-up. Real Madrid finished the match the way every team does when it plays most of the second half a man down and chasing the game: bodies pushed into the box, hoping for something off a set piece.

Mourinho's response: printed photos and a direct accusation against the referee

Mourinho arrived at the post-match press conference holding two printed photos, showing challenges by Cristian Romero on Jude Bellingham and by Kang-in Lee on Federico Valverde that, in his view, also deserved red cards. He opened with the material before taking a single question: "We can spare ourselves this press conference, because the story of the match is right here. These are two clear red cards." The line, said in Spanish and confirmed by more than one Spanish sports outlet covering the press conference, sums up the Portuguese coach's style: turning a refereeing complaint into physical evidence, literally printed on paper, handed to the press as proof of an error he believes cost his team twice in the same afternoon.

On the referee, Mourinho's complaint targeted inexperience: "A poor referee who has only refereed tiny little games", in the coach's own words, pointing out that Miguel Ángel Ortiz Arias, 41, had never refereed a single senior international. He went on, according to the same reports, to accuse VAR official Daniel Trujillo of a track record unfavourable to Real Madrid in past matches, citing earlier games against Real Sociedad, Osasuna and Girona as evidence of a pattern. It is the same one-two he always runs: question the referee's competence while, at the same time, hinting at intent rather than error, a line of argument that has already brought him disciplinary cases in other leagues he has worked in.

The response came through Atlético de Madrid's own social media, about a day later: a video of a printer repeatedly spitting out a photo of Mourinho himself holding his sheets at the press conference, captioned "stop arbitration harassment now". The mocking tone threw the coach's own material back at him, and turned a refereeing complaint into a full-blown rivalry moment on social media, with the Colchonero club choosing public mockery over the official protest statement clubs usually issue in these situations.

Diego Simeone avoided commenting on the incident itself and called for restraint in public, in a deliberately measured tone for someone who had just won the derby: "It doesn't matter the name, whether it's Mourinho, Simeone or Flick: we need to be careful with what we say", he said, adding that "we are respectful of everything others think (...) we have to respect each other, and the referees". It is a deliberate contrast in posture: while his rival brought printed evidence into the press room, the Argentine coach chose the path of generalities, naming no names and no incidents, even while leading the team that walked away with the three points and the benefit of the controversial decision.

Miguel Ángel Ortiz Arias, 41, became the first Madrid-born referee, among those registered with the local committee (CAFM), to take charge of a Madrid derby in LaLiga: a historic note in its own right, overshadowed by the controversy over Huijsen's card. The afternoon was not smooth for the other bench either: right at kickoff, Diego Simeone picked up an unusually early yellow card, too soon to be routine. The detail matters because it undercuts the one-sided refereeing narrative Mourinho's press conference tried to build: the referee got it wrong, or, on the VAR review, corrected an error on the pitch, against Real Madrid, but he did not spare warnings for Atlético's own bench either.

The second defeat in seven matchdays, and the Betis precedent

This is not the first time Mourinho's Real Madrid has walked off beaten by a single goal in a similar situation. On 04/09/2026, Betis had already won 1-0, with Troy Parrott scoring in the 81st minute and Álvaro Valles saving a Mbappé penalty in stoppage time. Between one defeat and the other, the team put together a convincing 4-1 win over Rayo Vallecano on 12/09/2026, and a scrappier 3-2 win away at Elche on 15/09/2026. It is a run of results that shows a team capable of running up the score when it has space and plays eleven against eleven, but still unable to manage tight games against opponents who shut down the pitch or capitalise on the first individual mistake.

The LaLiga table: Barcelona out in front, and Real Madrid behind Betis themselves

The standings below are from LaLiga's official page, closed at the end of matchday 7, on 21/09/2026: Barcelona have won their first seven matches of the season and lead comfortably, Atlético moved up to second with the derby win, overtaking Real Betis on goal difference despite the same points total, and Real Madrid have five wins and two defeats, with not a single draw along the way. It is the clearest snapshot of the moment: whoever won the derby improved their position, and whoever lost saw the chasing pack close in right behind them.

The maths checks out fast: five wins are worth 15 points, and that is exactly the total the table shows, because Real Madrid still have not drawn a single game this season, for better or worse. Barcelona's 21 points against Real Madrid's 15 leave a gap of 6 points after just 7 matchdays; against 3rd-placed Real Betis, the very team that beat Mourinho's side in September, the gap is just 1 point. A team with no draws is a team that settles everything: in the five wins, they came out on top; in the two defeats, they came out on the wrong side. It is a pattern that tends to even out over time, but in September it still leaves more questions than answers about the team Mourinho is building.

Derby history: a lopsided lead for Real Madrid overall, but even over the last decade

The all-time record is overwhelmingly in Real Madrid's favour, but it spans more than a century; what matters for reading the present is the recent balance. Over the last 10 league meetings between the two sides, it is 3 wins for Atlético, 3 for Real Madrid and 4 draws, a picture of parity that this Sunday's result reinforces rather than contradicts. And Real Madrid had won the two meetings immediately before this one: 2-1 in the Spanish Supercopa semifinal, on 08/01/2026, in Jeddah, and 3-2 in LaLiga, on 22/03/2026, at the Santiago Bernabéu. Atlético captain Koke remains the player with the most appearances in the history of the Madrid derby: 45 games, ahead of Sergio Ramos.

Fourth coach in just over a year: the Real Madrid bench carousel

Mourinho is no stranger to Madrid. He managed Real Madrid between 2010 and 2013 and won three trophies: the 2010/11 Copa del Rey, against Barcelona in the final; the 2011/12 LaLiga title, with 100 points and a 9-point margin over Guardiola's Barcelona, ending the Catalans' dominance; and the 2012 Spanish Supercopa. Over the same spell, he reached three straight Champions League semifinals without ever getting through. He returns thirteen years later as the fourth different name on the Real Madrid bench inside a period of just over a year, signed from Benfica for a €15 million release clause, on a contract running until 30/06/2029.

As an analyst, I resist calling this a crisis: a team 6 points off the top in September, with the whole season still ahead, still has plenty of room to correct course. But the numbers on the actual scoresheet do not lie about the moment: two defeats in 7 matchdays, not a single draw along the way, the fourth different coach in just over a year, and a manager who would rather gather photographic evidence for the press than explain why his team cannot hold onto a numerical advantage when it has one. This is not a crisis. It is a project that has not yet convinced on the pitch, with a heavy October ahead to prove otherwise.

After the late-September international break, Real Madrid return to action on 11/10/2026, against Villarreal, at the Santiago Bernabéu, in LaLiga. It is the first match of a heavy run that includes Roma and RB Leipzig in the Champions League and closes, on 25/10/2026, with another derby: this time against Barcelona, at Camp Nou. After what happened at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano, Mourinho is unlikely to prepare for that run without first reviewing his marking at set pieces and the call to drop his back line a notch deeper.