Mbappé and Bellingham Fire Madrid Past Racing, 3–0

SANTANDER, Spain — Real Madrid needed 36 minutes to end this as a contest. Three goals, each cleaner than the last, carried them to a 3–0 win at Racing Santander on Sunday — a sixth straight victory in all competitions, a ninth league win of the season, and the kind of ruthless first half that turns a tricky away day in the north into a formality.

Kylian Mbappé opened it from the penalty spot in the 11th minute, a penalty he won himself with the kind of burst that leaves a defender choosing between a foul and a front-row seat. It was his 12th league goal of the season, and it settled any nerves about a Racing side that had not lost at home all season. Ten minutes later the game’s signature moment arrived: Arda Güler slipped a pass through for Jude Bellingham, who skipped past Racing goalkeeper Julen Agirrezabala and finished into the empty net. The goal was Bellingham’s 50th for Real Madrid in all competitions — a milestone with a famous shadow, because it moves him past the 49 Zinedine Zidane scored in the same white shirt.

On 36 minutes the third arrived, and it was the pick of them. A Güler corner was cleared only as far as the edge of the area, where Yan Diomande met the dropping ball on the half-volley and thundered it into the top corner. Three goals from three different kinds of attack — a penalty won by pace, a through ball finished by composure, a set-piece finished by violence. It was the first time since May 2024 that Madrid had scored three first-half goals in an away league game, and El Sardinero, loud all season, went quiet in a way that told the story of the afternoon.

Run a finger down the scoresheet and one name keeps appearing underneath the goals. Güler supplied the pass for Bellingham’s milestone. Güler took the corner that Diomande detonated. Even the penalty came at the end of the kind of attacking sequence Madrid’s young Turkish playmaker has been orchestrating all season. Mbappé will take the headlines and Bellingham the milestone, but this was also a Güler afternoon — two of the three goals ran directly through him, and the third, the penalty, was won by the striker his service keeps feeding. Madrid’s attack, at its best, is beginning to look less like a collection of stars taking turns and more like a system with a conductor.

Context matters for the hosts, too. Racing did not fold against a mid-table visitor having a good day; they were beaten, comprehensively, by the most in-form team in the country, a side that arrived in Santander having won five straight in all competitions and played the first half like it intended to make the sixth a coronation. El Sardinero had been a small fortress this season. It took the best team in Spain on current form, playing close to its ceiling for 36 minutes, to knock the walls down.

The second half ran on cruise control, and Reuters’ report of a comfortable Madrid afternoon is, if anything, generous to the hosts. Mbappé went closest to a fourth when he struck a post after an hour. Bellingham thought he had a second in stoppage time, the goal ruled out for offside. Racing’s one genuine route back into the evening — a penalty awarded for a handball against Aurélien Tchouaméni — was taken away again on a VAR review, and with it went the last of the home crowd’s belief.

There is a temptation, on days like this, to ask what Racing did wrong. The honest answer is: less than the scoreline suggests. They were beaten by a penalty won by the fastest player on the pitch, a milestone goal finished with total composure, and a half-volley most players in the league could not execute on a training ground. Agirrezabala, rounded once and beaten twice more through no real fault of positioning, kept the second half scoreless and gave his side the dignity of a contest that stayed 3–0 rather than becoming something uglier. Sometimes the other team is simply better, and on Sunday the other team was the best version of Real Madrid.

For Racing, a first home defeat of the season after five unbeaten at El Sardinero leaves them 16th, one point above the relegation zone and looking down at a winter that will be about survival. For Madrid, the arithmetic of the title race stays tight and interesting: third place, three points behind leaders Barcelona and one behind Atlético Madrid in second, with the machine apparently warming up exactly as the calendar turns. Six straight wins in all competitions is not a run of form anymore. It is a rhythm. Every stat from this one is in the Game Center.