Paper trail of protests: José Mourinho plays the hits in Madrid derby defeat | Sid Lowe

The Madrid derby raised many questions. Atlético won 2-1 in front of 70,514 very noisy fans at the Metropolitano on Sunday afternoon. But it was not the question José Mourinho was asking. Other questions came up instead. What year is this? What was Dean Huijsen thinking? Why is it always Arda? What happened to Vinícius Júnior? How is Koke still the best player? How long until Giuliano Simeone bursts from pure Atlético passion? But the biggest question was this: where did Real Madrid's manager get a printer from? And how did he actually get it to work?

You could still hear the singing outside when Mourinho arrived in the press room. He put down his glasses and sat. He was holding a piece of paper. It was 13 years since his last derby. That was the night at the Santiago Bernabéu when Madrid lost the Copa del Rey final and ended a 13-year unbeaten run against their neighbours. Now Diego Simeone had beaten him again. The stadium was new – this one did not exist back then – but his rival was somehow the same man, still dressed in black. The scene felt a bit like the old days, a classic matchup. Mourinho unfolded the paper and held it up. “We can save ourselves the bother of the press conference,” he said, “because the story is right here.”

On the back of an Atlético info sheet, someone had printed two screen grabs from the first half, one below the other. Someone had been sent to make a copy, maybe a football version of Natalie Harp, or maybe the manager himself, coming back with two graphic, freeze-framed, full-colour close-ups of tackles. The first picture showed Cuti Romero's studs hitting Jude Bellingham's knee. The second showed Kang-in Lee's boot on Fede Valverde's ankle. Mourinho said both tackles should have been red cards, and he was probably right, but neither one was given. He said the match should have been nine players against 11. Instead, it was 11 against 10, because early in the second half Huijsen pulled down Giuliano Simeone, giving away the penalty that put Atlético ahead and got Huijsen sent off. Mourinho said that was the end of the story.

At that point, he could have gotten up and left. That would have saved everyone the trouble of the press conference, just like he promised. But no one wanted that, especially not his club president. Talking to the press is the thing he does best, so he continued. He faced five questions. Four of them were about the referee. The answer to the one question that was not about the referee was about the referee anyway. When he finished, he left the paper there for Diego Simeone to look at. Most people agreed on one thing: Mourinho is back, and he is playing his greatest hits. There was a hint of the nostalgia that had brought him "home" in the first place. There was also a hint of his conspiratorial way of thinking. It echoed the time he read out 13 "errors" made by the referee Clos Gómez 16 years earlier.

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Mourinho said the referee — only 41 years old, not an international official, and announced in advance instead of 24 hours before kickoff — could not handle the pressure. He said it was "like the 1980s." The coach, who had already brought back his well-known "por qué" (why?) comment after Real Madrid lost at Betis, also listed several decisions made by the VAR referee, Daniel Trujillo Suárez — a man he suggested has a history — which he said "make you laugh." He talked about "strange things" happening. He said he did not want to think badly of officials, did not want to say the league had been "set up" for other teams to win, and did not want to believe these were anything other than honest mistakes — of course not. He said he congratulated the referees' committee and promised to keep fighting for the title even though his team is already six points behind — "if they let us." "I thought I would come back to find a different league from the one I left, but [at Madrid] they told me it was not different and explained why," he said.

Mourinho did not really talk about the actual football, perhaps because there was not much football to talk about. The red cards may have shaped the game — they may well have — and he had the right to argue that the red cards were correct, though Romero's dismissal was debatable. But it was hard to shake the feeling that Mourinho was deliberately avoiding a bigger issue and, in doing so, showed a deeper truth. He could not escape the reality he was trying to avoid: Madrid are simply not very good right now. Too many questions were left unanswered, leaving one more to ask: is that really all there is? He gave little evidence to support his brief claim that they played well in the first half and were set up to win it in the second — how so? Even if that were true, it would only show a limited approach: wait, counter-attack, and hope the goal comes.

With the players Madrid have, this often happens. But Atlético knew this could happen, and they planned for it. They also knew where they could cause damage: by putting extra players on Madrid's left side. Simeone's team took more than twice as many shots as Madrid and had two-thirds of the ball. They played carefully, but it was Atlético, not Madrid, who controlled the game. Before the possible red cards, Mourinho's team had offered little. Their first shot on target came in the 39th minute, from 25 yards out. After the actual red card, they offered even less. For most of that time, Atlético's half of the pitch was empty except for a pigeon. After Guler was substituted, Madrid barely reacted at all. Playing with 10 men is hard, but there was almost no spark from them. Even the goal they scored in the 89th minute was just one isolated moment. Despite the nervous atmosphere at the Metropolitano, Atlético created more chances after that goal too.

Espanyol 1-3 Elche, Sevilla 1-3 Barcelona, Celta Vigo 5-0 Real Santander, Athletic Bilbao 0-0 Alavés, Osasuna 1-1 Rayo Vallecano, Valencia 2-3 Real Sociedad, Villarreal 3-1 Levante, Deportivo A Coruña 1-1 Real Betis, Atlético 2-1 Real Madrid, Getafe 1-0 Málaga

None of this would matter much if it happened only once, but these problems were familiar. Madrid needed late goals from Carlos Espí to beat Espanyol and Elche, and they are already six points behind the leaders. It is only seven weeks into the season, so nothing is decided yet, and Madrid's rebuilding is only beginning. But basic problems that have troubled them for the last two years still have not been fixed. The only time Barcelona lost a lead that big at the top of the table was during Fabio Capello's unlikely league title win in 2006-07. Hansi Flick's team is playing very well right now, and it is hard to trust Madrid to take advantage even if Barcelona did slip up. Claude Makélélé summed them up by saying: "Nothing, nothing, nothing." That leaves only this: a plan on paper and a lot of worry, a season still to be played out. Some things do not change. Some people do not change much either.

Some, though, do. The last time these two coaches met in a derby, Simeone’s son Giuliano was told he was too little to go to the final so he hung scarves around the living room and watched it from home with his brothers instead. It was late, it was a school night, and he was only 10. He is 23 now and these days he plays for them, a bundle of intensity going at it the way a fan would, and on the day these two “colleagues of war” – as Mourinho called them – met again 13 years later he decided the derby, forcing the penalty for the first and setting up the second. There is some footage somewhere of Giuliano as a ballboy racing up the touchline and leaping into his father’s arms, celebrating wildly when Atlético scored against Madrid. A decade on, another derby day, and it happened again, only this time it was his dad sprinting up the line towards him.

Talking points “We give him the ball, he scores the goals,” Fermín López said. This has happened again and again. Raphinha, who is playing as a stand-in centre forward, has now scored 12 league goals in just seven games, plus two more in the Champions League. He is five goals ahead of anyone else already. On Saturday night he scored an extremely impressive hat-trick. His movement was just like a real No 9, and his touch and finishing were fast and brilliant, as Barcelona beat Sevilla 3-1. Sevilla scored first and played as well as any team has against Flick’s side so far this season, but in the end they could not keep up. Coach Luis García called Barcelona “stratospheric”. That makes seven wins from seven league games (eight wins from eight in all competitions), with 31 goals scored already. The captain is leading the way, not just by scoring goals but in every part of his play, carrying everyone along with his intense energy. Raphinha says that Lamine Yamal should win the Ballon d’Or, but right now there is no one quite like Raphinha himself. That said, Lamine Yamal played incredibly well at the Pizjuan.

At the end of the 0-0 draw with Athletic, Alavés goalkeeper Antonio Sivera walked off the pitch saying: “At last, at last!” He said his record before this was “ridiculous,” but now he had finally done it. He is a European champion at under-21 level and is now 30 years old. He had just saved the first penalty of his entire career.

• “When I played football as a kid in Croatia, everyone wants to play in one of Europe’s top five leagues and on my list Spain was bottom, but in the end it seems like Osasuna and La Liga is my place: God’s path is different to mine,” said Ante Budimir on Saturday, after a lovely chest-and-volley goal took him to 100 in Spain.

• Speaking of which, what a way to celebrate the 100th birthday of your home.

Pos Team P GD Pts 1 Barcelona 7 24 21 2 Atletico Madrid 7 9 16 3 Real Betis 7 2 16 4 Real Madrid 7 10 15 5 Sevilla 7 1 13 6 Alaves 7 5 11 7 Deportivo A Coruna 7 2 10 8 Real Sociedad 7 -4 10 9 Villarreal 7 1 8 10 Athletic Bilbao 6 1 8 11 Getafe 7 -3 8 12 Rayo Vallecano 7 -5 8 13 Osasuna 7 -7 8 14 Celta Vigo 7 2 7 15 Espanyol 7 0 7 16 Racing Santander 7 -10 7 17 Levante 6 -4 5 18 Elche 7 -6 5 19 Valencia 7 -9 4 20 Malaga 7 -9 3