An Mbappe hat-trick lit up the Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday night as Real Madrid beat Real Sociedad 4-1, handing Jose Mourinho a statement victory on his first home league game back in charge after 13 years away.
It was a considerably more convincing performance than the scrappy 2-1 win at Espanyol that opened his second spell. Here is how it unfolded, and why there is a distinctly Premier League flavour to this Real Madrid side.
Mourinho’s Bernabeu homecoming
The occasion carried real weight. It had been nearly 5,000 days since Mourinho last stood on the Bernabeu touchline — his final home game of the first reign was a 4-2 win over Osasuna on 1 June 2013, with Jose Callejon scoring the last goal of that era.
This fixture was actually the rescheduled Matchday 1, postponed for clubs with players involved in the World Cup semi-finals. That quirk meant Madrid arrived with three points already banked and the chance to make their first home outing of the season a proper occasion.
How the Mbappe hat-trick unfolded
The opening half-hour gave little hint of an Mbappe hat-trick. Sociedad had chances through Mikel Oyarzabal, and Madrid needed until the 40th minute to break through, Kylian Mbappe finishing after being teed up by captain Federico Valverde.
The second half was where it opened up. Madrid were far sharper after the interval, and Mbappe completed his treble on 80 minutes, converting a Vinicius Junior assist. It was his first goal involvement of the season, and it arrived in triplicate.
The significance of the Mbappe hat-trick is not lost on anyone in Madrid. Mbappe failed to register a single La Liga hat-trick across the whole of 2025/26. Opening his account for this campaign with three in one night, in front of a Bernabeu crowd welcoming Mourinho back, could hardly have been scripted better.
The Premier League connection in Mourinho’s XI
For anyone following English football, the team sheet is worth a look. Mourinho named Thibaut Courtois in goal behind a back four of Denzel Dumfries, Ibrahima Konate, Dean Huijsen and Alvaro Carreras.
Konate arrived on a free transfer after leaving Liverpool at the end of last season, while Huijsen made the move from Bournemouth. In midfield, Bernardo Silva — a Manchester City mainstay for the best part of a decade — started alongside Valverde, with Arda Guler, Jude Bellingham and Vinicius Junior supporting Mbappe.
That is three players with substantial Premier League grounding in the spine of a Mourinho side. The traffic runs both ways, of course: Barcelona have just signed Rodri from Manchester City in a package worth up to €76.5m, as we covered in our Rodri to Barcelona report, while sending Ronald Araujo to Anfield on loan, detailed in our Ronald Araujo Liverpool piece.
Context: how good was this really?
An Mbappe hat-trick and a 4-1 scoreline look emphatic, but the opposition matters. Real Sociedad are in genuinely poor shape. Their only victory since 4 April was a penalty shoot-out win over Atletico Madrid in the Copa del Rey final, and they arrived having lost 1-0 at home to Real Betis — a ninth consecutive league game without a win.
Madrid have also been unbeaten at home against Sociedad in La Liga since 2019, and beat them 4-1 at the Bernabeu in their most recent league meeting there in February.
Two wins from two extends Madrid’s unbeaten La Liga run to ten matches, stretching back to a strong finish last season. That is a genuinely encouraging platform, but the real tests are still ahead.
The injury picture
The Mbappe hat-trick came with Mourinho still missing several senior options. Eder Militao, Rodrygo, Ferland Mendy and Aurelien Tchouameni all missed out through injury, which makes the performance more creditable while also underlining how thin the squad is in certain areas.
Eduardo Camavinga picked up a yellow card in stoppage time, and Mourinho was able to give minutes to Carlos Espi and Yan Diomande late on, with Espi replacing Bernardo Silva on 86 minutes.
What it means for the title race
Barcelona remain the benchmark. Hansi Flick’s side won back-to-back titles last season, sealing the second with a Clasico victory and three games to spare, and they opened this campaign by thrashing Elche 5-0.
Madrid needed to show they can match that intensity, and an Mbappe hat-trick at the Bernabeu is the clearest early signal that they might. Whether it holds up against stronger opposition than a Sociedad side on a nine-game winless run is the question that will define Mourinho’s season.
The pattern is familiar across Europe. Nine Premier League clubs began this season under a manager appointed within the year, as we set out in our look at the new Premier League managers for 2026/27, and the opening rounds there have been just as unpredictable — Hull beat Manchester United, as covered in our Premier League opening weekend roundup.
What comes next
With the Mbappe hat-trick fresh in the memory, Madrid host Malaga on 30 August before travelling to Real Betis on 4 September. Mourinho will want a third straight win to build momentum before the fixture list stiffens.
His opening win at Espanyol, covered in our piece on the Mourinho Real Madrid return, suggested a side still finding its rhythm. This performance suggested something closer to the real thing.
For the full goal-by-goal account, beIN Sports has every goal covered, while Managing Madrid’s statistical breakdown digs into the underlying numbers.
