Madrid's Ruthless Response to Betis Setback with 4-1 Win Over Rayo
Madrid’s response to their Betis setback was ruthless. Rayo felt the full force.
Four goals, three points, and a statement that this early-season wobble might just have been a one-off. At the Bernabéu on Saturday night, Madrid rolled to a 4-1 win that restores order in La Liga and stretches their unbeaten home run against Rayo to 17 matches, a streak that goes all the way back to 1996.
Mbappé leads the charge
Kylian Mbappé set the tone. He opened the scoring from the penalty spot, calm and clinical, to wipe away any lingering nerves from that shock defeat to Real Betis. Once he’d broken the deadlock, Madrid played with a different swagger.
The pressure mounted. Rayo buckled.
Minutes after his penalty, Mbappé turned provider, sliding a pass into the path of Álvaro Carreras, who finished to make it 2-0 and give Madrid full control before the break.
Rayo were chasing shadows, and Madrid weren’t done.
Vinícius Jr cut the ball back with typical sharpness, and Jude Bellingham arrived to turn it in, stretching the lead and underlining just how devastating this Madrid front line can be when it clicks. Three goals, three different scorers, same message: when they accelerate, they are hard to live with.
A tired finish, but job done
Rayo did find a way to briefly disturb the script. After the interval, Sergio Camello pounced to halve the deficit and inject a hint of tension into a game that had looked dead.
Madrid, though, were clearly running on tired legs.
Head coach Jose Mourinho didn’t hide it. With a packed schedule and Champions League minutes in midweek, the intensity dropped. The first-half storm gave way to a more measured, survival-minded second period.
“We score a lot of goals, but we also miss a lot of chances. I told my staff that one day there will be a team that will pay for all these missed chances (laughs),” Mourinho said afterwards, as quoted by MadridXtra. “There will be a match where we score seven goals. We played for 45 minutes and then it was over. I knew the players were tired and couldn't play another half like that. Look at how Bellingham played the final ten minutes, with no energy.”
The fatigue was obvious. The result never really in doubt.
As stoppage time arrived, Mbappé closed the night with his second and Madrid’s fourth, killing off any faint Rayo hopes and adding another line to his growing list of records. That late strike took him to six goals in his first five league games of the season, matching Karim Benzema’s 2021-22 mark and underlining how quickly he has embedded himself as the reference point in attack.
Bernardo Silva’s growing influence
While Mbappé’s numbers grab the headlines, another figure is quietly tightening his grip on this team.
Bernardo Silva, one of the club’s marquee summer signings, is starting to look like the metronome Mourinho wanted. He doesn’t always dominate the highlight reels, but he shapes the rhythm. He slows the game when Madrid need a breath, speeds it up when they smell blood.
His role is clear, and so are his instructions.
“We are happy with the three points, but now we need to get ready for the next game,” Silva said after the win. “What Jose Mourinho asks of me? To help in the build-up with the ball. He wants me to give the team more fluidity so we can progress the ball. I'm trying to adapt and to give the best version of myself.”
This is the balance Mourinho is chasing: Mbappé’s explosiveness, Bellingham’s penalty-box timing, Vinícius’ chaos out wide, and Bernardo’s calm in the middle. When it all aligns, Madrid look like a side capable of hitting the seven-goal avalanche their coach half-joked about.
For now, four was more than enough. The reaction was emphatic, the message clear. If this is Madrid still feeling the weight of a congested calendar, what happens when the legs are fresh and those missed chances finally all start to go in?
