• Atlético accused Barcelona during summer chase

• Striker now rebuilding his reputation with fans

Barcelona’s pursuit of Julián Álvarez came at a modest cost ⁠on Tuesday after the Spanish FA fined the club €602 (£503) following a complaint by Atlético Madrid over contact ⁠with ​the striker.

Atlético accused Barcelona of approaching the Argentine, whose contract runs until June 2030, ⁠without first notifying them in writing.

It was just like old times as José Mourinho ended a night at Camp Nou with a knee slide and three points

José Mourinho had already done the por qué?, the printout and the press conference no-show in under 100 days. Now he’s done a knee slide too, and in the perfect place: back where it all began and where it can all begin again. When Kylian Mbappé scored the first in the clásico on Sunday night, Real Madrid’s manager hardly moved, sitting in the shadow of the bench – but when the striker got the second to win it with time running out, that was different. Mourinho leapt into the light, throwing himself to the grass, the knees of a 63-year-old’s trousers muddy as a schoolboy’s, stuck his tongue out and pumped his fists.

He does so love it when a plan comes together. To the right of him, the bench was emptying, subs joining the players in sprinting towards the south-west corner. As they leapt about, dodging the bottles thrown towards them from the end, way, way up in the furthest corner and stuck inside a glass box like a bunch of David Blaines, the small group of Madrid fans who had come were going mad. In the main stand, a thousand phones were raised. And 600 kilometres west, back in Boadilla, Thibaut Courtois was watching his teammates from the sofa at home, presumably wrapped in a blanket and cradling a cup of Lemsip. On the morning of the biggest game there is, he awoke with flu, forced to miss out.

Thirteen years later, José Mourinho led Real Madrid into the Camp Nou as one team and them out again as another having secured the kind of late victory he loves and which opens up a whole new world. With just three minutes and the final reserves of energy remaining, a wonderful moment of skill from Jude Bellingham found Eduardo Camavinga and set them on one last run. Camavinga sprinted free, skilfully slipped Pau Cubarsí and pulled back for Kylian Mbappé to provide the finish, a little bit of history written.

“The world that loves football will have stopped to watch this and they won’t have gone disappointed; this was two teams that played to win,” Mourinho said. It had been an intense, breathless ride, a proper battle, and it was his team who won it. Arriving right on time, Mbappé scored his second to make it 2-1, the Camp Nou falling quiet and their team given no time to react. They had drawn level after Mbappé’s opener, Raphinha scoring, but could not do it again.

Kylian Mbappé scored twice as Real Madrid ended their rivals’ perfect league start in a statement victory for José Mourinho

Richard Hirst asks: “Can we add this to Peter’s bingo card? … Points out he’s only been the manager for 35 seconds.” A fair shout.

Peter Oh has prepared a José Mourinho bingo card for tonight’s game …

Once Bobby Robson’s translator at the Camp Nou, José Mourinho is tasked with bringing down Barcelona on Sunday

José Mourinho has done the por que?, the printout and the press conference no-show, and he’s been here only three months. The Real Madrid manager has played the classics without even playing a clásico. Not yet anyway, but it’s time: on Sunday night he returns to the stadium he first arrived at 30 transformative years ago as Bobby Robson’s talented young translator, and last visited in 2013 as the most famous manager in football.

The coach who once declared “today, tomorrow and always, Barcelona in my heart,” and claimed he would only ever go to Real Madrid to destroy them, has been entrusted with attempting to bring about the destruction of Barcelona. It is not the first time: if his return is about nostalgia, which it is, that’s wrapped up in their rivals too.

The fixture’s relevance waned as the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry faded. Can Lamine Yamal and Mbappé lift it into a new era?

For the best part of a decade, el clásico was more than just soccer’s biggest fixture. It was the defining narrative. At the peak of the Lionel Messi v Cristiano Ronaldo era, there were clásicos everywhere. Yes, when the two historic rivals clashed on the pitch, but also in the voting for the Ballon d’Or every year and in so much of the discourse around the sport.

As the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry faded, though, so too did the clásico’s relevance. This isn’t to say matches between Barcelona and Real Madrid no longer matter. They always have and always will. In 2026, however, it’s difficult to measure a clásico’s standing. Is it still the sport’s biggest fixture?

The reigning champions must deal with the absence of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia for some time, while fans at Anfield were thrilled by Rio Ngumoha

Paris Saint-Germain beat Barcelona 4-2 on Tuesday, but the reigning champions lost the best player in last season’s tournament, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. This autumn has seen much lobbying for the Ballon d’Or, with the Georgian a popular choice, despite his absence from the World Cup. He is expected to be out for six months, although Rodri’s comeback from serious injury – he was rested by Barcelona on Tuesday until coming off the bench in the 60th minute – shows it can take far longer than that for players to rediscover their highest level.

Fire, noise, fury, a sense of empty energy. And across town, a football match too. Do any of these randomly pitched autumnal Champions League fixtures mean anything? Probably not when you’re Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona, and the only game in town is risk-free TV income and a semi-guaranteed place in the knockout stuff.

But this was still a dazzling occasion at the Parc des Princes, where the champions of France and Spain played out a light, open, frictionless, exhibition-style game of football. PSG finished 4-2 winners, having been pegged back to 2-2 midway through the second half. But this was also a game where the score almost did not seem to matter, and where the only really hard message was the frailty of the Barcelona backline and PSG’s thrilling attacking energy in these midweek A-games.

The 19-year-old scored a cracker in Seville, days after his ‘almost rabona’ at Galatasaray, as La Liga leaders beat Real Betis

When at last it was time for Lamine Yamal to leave, the 19-year-old’s number going up before the 90th minute for only the second time since the opening day, Real Betis fans whistled him all the way to the touchline where Barcelona’s coach was waiting. His work here was done, Hansi Flick invited him to take the weight off his feet and his shoulders, not that he wanted to. First, though, he took Lamine Yamal’s head in his hands and, leaning in away from the amateur lip readers, tried to make himself heard over the noise. “I told him I was proud of him because he played a fantastic game,” he said.

At least he could think of something. When Lamine Yamal had opened the scoring just nine minutes into the match that was supposed to find out how good Barcelona really were, it hadn’t been easy. Nothing erudite, anyway. On the morning that Barcelona went to Betis – first v third, a proper opponent at last – Jorge Valdano had lamented that sometimes he doesn’t have the words, and he always has the words. Valdano had just watched Lamine do that, whatever that was, in Istanbul – an “almost rabona”, the kid called it – and now he had a problem. “If he keeps doing strange things, we’re not going to be able to explain it,” he wrote.

• Lamine Yamal opens scoring in ninth straight win

• Luis Díaz hat-trick helps Bayern thump RB Leipzig 6-1

Barcelona’s La Liga juggernaut rolled into Seville on Saturday and left with the scoreboard smoking, as the leaders beat Real Betis 5-2 to make it ⁠nine wins from nine, ⁠stretching their blistering league ​goal tally to 39.

Lamine Yamal lit the fuse with a dazzling opener before Rodri, Gabriel Jesus, Eric García and the substitute Dani Olmo joined the party, while Valentín Gómez and Ez Abde replied ⁠for Betis, who played much of the second half with 10 men after Facundo Bernal was sent off for head-butting Lamine Yamal.

• Inter 3-4 Club Brugge; Galatasaray 1-4 Barcelona

• Olise sent off as Bayern held 3-3 at Viking Stavanger

Club Brugge and their young forward Nicolò Tresoldi shocked Inter 4-3 at San Siro in the Champions League’s result of the night. Tresoldi, a 22-year-old Italian-born Germany Under-21s forward, scored the first three goals for the Belgian side.

A Hakan Calhanoglu foul on Carlos Forbs resulted in a penalty which Tresoldi slotted in just before the half hour. Tresoldi picked up his second after capitalising on a blunder by the Inter keeper Josep Martínez and reacted faster than the Inter defence for the third with a quarter of an hour to go.

• Barcelona 3-0 Getafe, Inter 3-0 Parma, PSG 3-1 Le Mans

• Bayern concede fastest Bundesliga goal in Augsburg draw

Anthony Gordon scored his first goal for Barcelona as they extended their perfect start in La Liga with a 3-0 home win over Getafe. The England international opened the scoring in the second minute and Gabriel Jesus added another after half an hour for the league leaders, who have won every match they have played this season.

Gordon, who has impressed since joining from Newcastle this summer, grabbed his first Barça goal with a low deflected effort after bundling his way past three players. Getafe defender Zaid Romero gave the ball away in his own box for Barça’s second, passing it straight to Jesus who stroked into the bottom corner.

Spain and Barcelona wonderkid has won World Cup and European Championship but says there are no limits for his career

Like the kid he is, Lamine Yamal just wanted to keep playing. This wasn’t Plaça Joan XXIII, wasn’t El Parque de Rocafonda either; it wasn’t the Mataró neighbourhood where it all began, but it might have been. “We’re in a World Cup final and I wanted to carry on,” he says, and there’s the smile again, the braces. Really? “Yes”. No nerves? “No. I never thought: ‘Just blow the whistle’. I was enjoying it.” No fear, just fun: 19 July, New Jersey and he knew: this 19-year-old who had happily been asleep on the bus to the biggest match of his life.

And now he sits in a first-floor office in Las Rozas, surrounded by tactics boards and stats sheets. There’s a Spain keyring hanging from the door and a second star on his shirt. In the corridor, crates loaded for London. Son of Mounir and Sheila, named after the family friends who helped them, “touched by God’s wand” in the words of the coach whose office is next door, there’s something about Lamine Yamal. He turned 17 the day before the final of Euro 2024, a schoolboy sitting exams, and 19 the day before the semi-final of the World Cup. Asked what he wanted, he said a trip to New York, so there he was, about to be a champion again.

Two years ago the Brazilian thought his time at Barcelona was ending but, two La Liga titles later, he is now captain and the most potent No 9 in Europe

For once, Raphael Dias Belloli puts the brakes on. The man who seems to be in perpetual motion, a footballer forever on fast forward, pauses, goes quiet for a moment and then, softly, utters something that says so much: “I think maybe people saw in me something I didn’t realise was there.” He did not know he was a leader, but he likes it. He did not know he was a captain, but according to his manager he is the “perfect captain”. And he did not know he was a No 9 either, but right now he is the best No 9 there is. In Barcelona or anywhere.

There was a time when Raphinha did not know whether he would be in Barcelona, when, feeling unwanted, he had accepted it was over, but this week he extended his contract to 2030. He will be 33 then: he would like to retire here and they would like him to retire here, too, a legend built on empathy and affection. “This is the best decision the club has made,” said Hansi Flick, the head coach Raphinha says changed his life. Sometimes you cannot get what you want so you have to settle for the best.

Theatre told that Facebook and Instagram filter out ads mentioning ‘social topics’ such as civil rights or feminism

A theatre in Barcelona has been banned from promoting a stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own on Instagram and Facebook because the work includes “social topics”.

When the newly reopened Teatre Raval, which seats 193 spectators, asked Meta, the parent company of the two social media sites, why its publicity had been blocked, it was told “any mention of civil rights, feminism or social reform [topics that are central to Woolf’s work] are usually classified as ‘social topics’ by our automatic system” and are filtered out.

• English manager responds after Paris FC’s win

• Martínez rescues Inter; Salah hits hat-trick

Paris FC extended their unbeaten start to the Ligue 1 campaign, beating Liam Rosenior’s old charges Strasbourg 2-1 in a match marred by abusive chants towards the Englishman from visiting fans.

The game was halted in the second half as Rosenior was targeted by his former supporters. There were also ugly scenes after the final whistle as Rosenior motioned to remonstrate with the away fans and had to be pulled away by his players.

With Barcelona racking up seven-goal thrillers, Real Madrid could not afford a collapse. Enter the forward quietly turning into José Mourinho’s ultimate secret weapon

José Mourinho called and Carlos Espí came to his side. It was late, it was noisy and it was almost over – the match and maybe even something more – when Real Madrid’s coach took the forward who is also his flatmate to one side on Tuesday night. Standing close, Mourinho had a message to deliver; he also had a piece of paper. Small, folded, half-hidden in his hand, it was not big enough for much more than a single word, shown almost surreptitiously, the request written on it, like what he had whispered in Espí’s ear, left to your imagination. Put ball in goal, perhaps. Or: Help. So he did.

Madrid needed him to, which they should not have. Two goals up inside half an hour at Elche on Tuesday night, they could have added a third or a fourth, maybe even a fifth, before half-time. But, thinking it was as done as it really should have been, their minds perhaps on Sunday’s derby at Atlético too, they had stopped again, drifting. Vinícius Júnior had gone, Arda Guler had gone, Aurélien Tchouaméni might as well have done, barely able to move any more, and now, somehow, the game was going. Goals from Abiel Osorio in the 71st minute and Fer Niño in the 83rd had made it 2-2.

• Cancelo, Jesus and Lamine Yamal also score in rout

• Atlético Madrid thrash Osasuna 4-0 to move into third

Raphinha scored a hat-trick as Barcelona ripped Racing Santander to shreds in a spectacular 7-2 triumph in La Liga on Wednesday. The win makes Hansi Flick the club’s first manager to win ⁠the opening seven competitive matches of a season.

João Cancelo, Gabriel Jesus and Lamine Yamal also scored for the unstoppable Catalan giants, who have netted 33 goals in those seven games across all competitions, and who moved three points clear of Real Madrid at the top of La Liga.

• Elversberg 1-2 Bayern; Sassuolo 3-2 Juventus

• Barcelona see off Levante, PSG end winless run

Harry Kane scored his first Bundesliga goal of the season to help Bayern Munich edge to a 2-1 win at promoted Elversberg on Sunday. Handed the captain’s armband with skipper Manuel Neuer rested, Kane scored with 18 minutes remaining to break a 1-1 deadlock and put the defending champions on track for victory.

Bayern had taken the lead through teenage Germany winger Lennart Karl, but Elversberg – who had won their opening two matches in their maiden top-flight campaign – levelled things up just after the hour mark thanks to a stunning curling effort from Maurice Krattenmacher.

• Brazilian scores twice in 5-1 victory at Camp Nou

• Torres scores hat-trick as PSG thump Slovan Bratislava

Raphinha let his goals do the talking after being omitted from the Ballon d’Or shortlist, striking twice as Barcelona eased to a 5-1 win over Feyenoord in the Champions League.

The Brazilian was a surprise omission from this week’s 30-strong list of candidates for the prestigious award but brushed any disappointment aside to continue his early season hot streak at a rain-soaked Camp Nou. The forward finished brilliantly in the third minute and added a second just before the hour mark to down the Eredivisie side and take his tally to eight goals in six outings at the start of the campaign.