Real Madrid have started badly. Not just by their standards, by any standard. Six points off the top, already chasing shadows, and now one of the club’s most loaded voices has said out loud what many in the Bernabéu fear: Barcelona look unstoppable.
Luis Figo, the man who once detonated Spanish football with his move from Barcelona to Real Madrid, has watched the opening weeks from a distance and doesn’t like what he sees for his old club. For Barça, though? He sees a machine.
“Barcelona are irresistible”
Speaking to Spanish radio station Marca, the former Ballon d’Or winner and current UEFA adviser did not bother to sugarcoat Barcelona’s start. Seven games, seven wins. Twenty-one points from 21. Thirty-one goals scored.
“They have started very strongly. They are winning, playing well and scoring goals. For Spanish football, this is of course a good thing,” Figo said.
It is the kind of dominance that scars a dressing room elsewhere. For Madridistas, the numbers sting. For Figo, they demand respect. Barcelona are not just collecting wins; they are doing it with authority, with rhythm, with the kind of attacking fluency that buries doubts before they form.
And yet, even as he admired the pace being set in Catalonia, he refused to declare the title race over in September.
“We have to wait and see how the season develops, because it is very long,” he warned, pulling the handbrake just slightly on the early-season hysteria.
Faith in Madrid’s response
The gap is already significant. Six points in a title race between these two clubs can feel like a canyon. Figo, though, has lived too many seasons at the top to believe that September tables decide May trophies.
“I am sure Real Madrid will compete until the end,” he insisted.
This was not blind loyalty. It was the voice of someone who understands what a league campaign demands.
“This is a competition that requires consistency until the month of May. There will be ups and downs during the season, and when they happen the team must show the maturity and quality to overcome them.”
The message was clear: panic helps no one. Madrid have been here before, chasing, doubted, questioned. The standard may have dropped in the opening weeks, but Figo expects the response of champions, not a surrender.
Derby defeat and Mourinho’s fury
The latest blow came in the city derby. A 2-0 defeat to Atletico Madrid on Sunday deepened the early-season gloom and sparked another storm around Jose Mourinho after his complaints about the refereeing.
Figo, though, stayed away from the noise. Literally.
He revealed he had not even watched the match, explaining that he was in Zurich at the time. On Mourinho’s fiery post-match comments, he kept his distance.
“He did what he thought he would do at that moment. I do not have to comment on it. I think these are personal acts, and if he did it, it was because he felt that way.”
No defence. No criticism. Just a line drawn. Figo knows how quickly a side story can swallow the main one at Real Madrid, and he refused to add fuel to a fire that already burns hot enough.
Ballon d’Or and a nod to Mbappé
The conversation then moved away from the Clasico axis and into individual glory. With Ballon d’Or voting closing next Monday, Figo was asked to weigh in. He stepped aside.
“I do not vote, so this is not on my mind. Those who make the decision are the ones who vote and we have to wait.”
No favourite, no prediction. Just distance from a debate he once dominated as a player.
There was, however, one name he happily lingered on: Kylian Mbappé.
“He is always at a very high level. He has got us used to being one of the best players in the world and to scoring goals.”
It was praise delivered without embellishment, but it carried weight. From a former world’s best to a current one, and perhaps a future centrepiece in Madrid’s long-term plans, the admiration felt pointed.
For now, though, Figo’s words circle back to Spain. Barcelona are flying. Real Madrid are stumbling. The season, he insists, is long. The question is whether Madrid can stretch it out into a genuine title race, or whether his early warning — that La Liga could be settled before May — starts to sound less like caution and more like prophecy.
