The Bernabeu had been jeering earlier in the evening. By the end it was on its feet. Kylian Mbappe scored three times as Real Madrid beat Real Sociedad 4-1 on Wednesday night, turning a nervy first hour into a comfortable evening and handing Jose Mourinho a second straight win since returning to the club.
A hat-trick in three separate acts
Mbappe opened the scoring shortly before the break with a finish that settled a stadium growing restless. Luka Sucic replied for Sociedad soon after, and for a while the visitors looked like they might make a night of it. Then Mbappe scored again just past the hour, and again with ten minutes left, spacing his goals out at roughly twenty-minute intervals as though he were working to a schedule.
Vinicius Junior added the fourth. Jude Bellingham set up two of the goals and spent the night dropping into the pockets of space Sociedad kept leaving between their midfield and back four. The scoreline flattered Madrid slightly in the first half and did not flatter them at all in the second.
Mourinho's home debut, second time around
This was Mourinho's first home match of his return to Madrid, and the reaction inside the ground was not uniformly warm before kick-off. Winning 4-1 tends to quieten that sort of thing. His side have now taken maximum points from their opening two La Liga fixtures, and the shape of the team already looks more compact out of possession than it did last season, with Bellingham given licence to roam because the two players behind him are not.
The Vinicius question hasn't gone away
Mourinho used his post-match media duties to hit out at what he described as bullying of Vinicius Junior, a subject that has followed the Brazilian around Spanish grounds for three seasons and shows no sign of resolving itself. Vinicius answered on the pitch, which is the only answer available to him, and his goal was the one that killed the game as a contest.
Sociedad were not embarrassed. Sucic's equaliser came from a well-worked move and they carried a threat on the counter until Madrid's third. But they had no answer to a centre-forward in this mood, and few sides in Europe do.
Match facts: Real Madrid 4-1 Real Sociedad, La Liga, Santiago Bernabeu, Wednesday 26 August 2026. Scorers: Mbappe (40, 60, 80), Vinicius Junior; Sucic for Real Sociedad. Bellingham registered two assists. Madrid have won both league games under Jose Mourinho.
0 Comments