Barcelona vs Real Madrid standings after El Clasico: Mbappe's late winner cuts gap to 3

Real Madrid beat Barcelona 2-1 at the Spotify Camp Nou on Sunday night, 25 October, and Kylian Mbappe scored both goals, the winner in the 87th minute. “FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid standings” jumped past 10,000 searches on Google Trends Pakistan during the match, and the short answer is: Barcelona are still top, but the gap to Real is now three points.

Where does the La Liga table stand?

According to Sky Sports and Dawn’s match reports:

• Barcelona stay first, despite their first league defeat of the season.
• Atletico Madrid are second, two points behind Barcelona.
• Real Madrid are third, three points behind Barcelona and one behind Atletico.

So one Clasico has turned a Barcelona stroll into a three-team race. It was also Real’s first win in Barcelona in three years.

How the goals went in

The opener was scrappy. Just before half-time, Barcelona defender Gerard Martin cleared a cross straight into Mbappe and the ball deflected in. It was Mbappe’s tenth league goal of the season, Dawn noted.

Barcelona looked more like themselves after the break. Just after the hour, Pedri slipped a reverse pass to Raphinha, who shot through Jude Bellingham’s legs and past Andriy Lunin to make it 1-1.

Then the decisive move. With three minutes left, Bellingham’s skill started it, Eduardo Camavinga beat Pau Cubarsi down the side and cut the ball back, and Mbappe finished into an empty net with Joan Garcia stranded. Lamine Yamal had a clear chance to equalise late on and miskicked it.

Why were Lunin and Diomande trending too?

Pakistani fans were not only searching for the result. “Andriy Lunin” and “Yan Diomande” also showed up on Google Trends PK on Sunday.

• Lunin started in Real’s goal because Thibaut Courtois had flu, according to Dawn. He was beaten only by Raphinha’s shot.
• Diomande was at the centre of the night’s main refereeing argument. Sky Sports pointed out that Joao Cancelo was not punished for a studs-up challenge on him shortly before Barcelona’s equaliser, which Real fans were loudly unhappy about.

What the managers said

“My team had an extraordinary game, very organised, good concentration,” Jose Mourinho said, as quoted by Dawn. His celebration after the winner, with staff spilling onto the pitch, was one of the images of the night. On the other side, Pedri admitted Barcelona “weren’t ourselves” in the first half.

Our take

For Barcelona this is a bad week rather than a crisis: they had won every league game before Sunday, but this was a second straight defeat after losing to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League. Real, meanwhile, won the Clasico without their first-choice goalkeeper and with a deflected goal, the kind of result that builds belief.

For the many Pakistani fans who stay up for La Liga, the next talking points are the Ballon d’Or, which was also trending here on Sunday, and Barcelona’s response in their next league game, where a slip would let both Madrid clubs close in.