Real Madrid Cannot Be Compared to Anyone: Mourinho Bets the Whole Season on the Marathon Narrative

28 goals in six rounds. Barcelona are playing football that makes the rest of La Liga look at the table and ask themselves what competition they are in. Yet José Mourinho, in the press conference before the Madrid derby against Atlético Madrid, calmly declared that Real Madrid cannot be compared to anyone. That statement sounds arrogant at first, but placed in context, it is a deliberate psychological move. Real Madrid sit second with 15 points, a respectable record. But the Spanish media and the club's own fans are showing doubts, because Barcelona have won all six matches and scored 28 goals, at least 11 more than any other side. The gap in points is five, but the gap in perception is a canyon. Mourinho's words should be read as a psychological tactic, not as a simple declaration of strength. When he says Real Madrid should not be compared to anyone, he is building a wall between his team and Barcelona's giant shadow. That is how a coach protects the dressing room before a media storm. He is also planting a belief in his players: if they stay patient, what Barcelona are doing now will gradually become meaningless as the season grows longer. The most important detail lies in what Mourinho admitted. He called the late wins over Elche and Betis abnormal. Before 2026, I watched football with my eyes. After 2026, I watched it with numbers that know how to cry. For a data skeptic, that admission is the most striking point in the Goal.com article. When a coach uses the word abnormal to describe his own team's victories, he is admitting that the result cannot be reproduced through a reliable process. Teams that reach 15 points after six rounds usually have stable control of matches. Real Madrid are different: they grab points in minutes when the opponent drops off, where the line between mentality and luck is extremely thin. Against Elche, against Betis, the repeated image is of a Real Madrid under pressure, rescued by an individual moment. Moments can repeat, but they cannot become a formula. In 2026, I sat in an empty stadium and listened to the breath of this sport. The empty stadium in 2026 taught me that football is only an echo of itself. La Liga's ecosystem this season also carries a lot of noise: Barcelona score like a machine, but nobody can guarantee that the machine will run until May. If Barcelona maintain their pace of 28 goals in six rounds, they would finish with more than 170 goals. That number contradicts every statistical rule in football, so the only certainty is that the early-season fever will cool down. From my experience following football in Southeast Asia and East Asia, I have learned that teams with strong personalities often win many undeserved matches. But the price is that they rarely build a stable style to survive a crisis. Mourinho's Real Madrid are choosing the personality path. It may take them past Atlético Madrid in round seven, but it may also cost them points against weaker opponents if that personality is not renewed at the right moment. I could be reading the situation too one-dimensionally. Real Madrid may truly have a special dressing room, and those late goals may come from superior fitness training rather than luck. But if that were true, why would Mourinho call them abnormal? His language betrayed him. When a coach labels the thing that is earning his team points as abnormal, he is preparing for a less positive version of reality. He wants lower expectations, so that pressure does not crush his players. The detail that made me pause the longest is the name Asensio. The Goal.com article, citing AS, mentions a wonderful Asensio goal in the context of the Mourinho era. Having followed two football cultures for many years, I see a chronological problem here. A data-driven writer cannot ignore this. If one background detail is wrong, the reference value of the whole story drops significantly. Perhaps translated articles put together pieces from different years. So I trust only the numbers that are repeated and clearly sourced: Barcelona 28 goals, Real Madrid 15 points. Maybe I am being extreme, but the 0–6 in Sichuan was not a defeat; it was a doorway into the world of data. Barcelona's 28 goals are the same. They are not a verdict against Real Madrid, but an inverted map for examining the system beneath the surface. The real question is not whether Real Madrid can catch Barcelona in October, but whether they have enough psychological data to survive seven more months. Mourinho refuses to compare his team with anyone because he understands that this race has only one true opponent: his own patience. This brings me to a testable prediction. If Real Madrid beat Atlético Madrid, Mourinho's marathon story will become the glue of the dressing room. If they lose, the pressure will multiply, and even the late winners will be remembered as luck. Over the next six rounds, I will closely track Real Madrid's goals after the 75th minute, along with whether Barcelona can keep their scoring rhythm. La Liga is a marathon, but marathons also have steep sections that make the faint-hearted let go. Mourinho has just put the stopwatch down, and I want to see which heart will still be beating at the end.