La Liga table after matchday 7: Atlético leapfrog Real Madrid

A 2-1 derby win at the Metropolitano, Huijsen's red card and a Mourinho rant leave Atlético above Real Madrid. Barcelona close on 21 points from 21, with Raphinha on 12 goals.

One image explains the La Liga table after matchday 7: Atlético de Madrid celebrating at the Metropolitano while Real Madrid's players surrounded the referee. Sunday's 2-1 in the Madrid derby, played on 20 September 2026, did not change who leads the league — Barcelona still have a perfect record — but it rearranged everything behind them. Atlético leapfrogged José Mourinho's side, and the reigning champions went into the international break seven points clear of fourth place.

The La Liga table after matchday 7: Atlético leapfrog Real Madrid

Barcelona closed the opening stretch of the season with 21 points from a possible 21. Behind them, the derby left Atlético and Real Betis tied on 16, with Real Madrid fourth on 15. Five rounds ago Madrid looked like the obvious challengers; now they are fourth in a table that has compressed sharply at the top.

The two numbers that best sum up matchday 7 sit at either end of that table: Barcelona have neither lost nor drawn a game, and Sevilla — fifth on 13 points — suffered their first home defeat of the season against the leaders. You can browse every round and its results in the 2026-27 season archive.

The Madrid derby that reshuffled the top four: Atlético 2-1 Real Madrid

The game turned inside five minutes. In the 52nd, Dean Huijsen hauled down Giuliano Simeone inside the box after David Hancko played the striker through. The referee reached for a yellow card, went to the pitchside monitor, and came back with a straight red for denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity. Alejandro Grimaldo tucked away the penalty on 53 minutes and, with Madrid down to ten, Jonathan David made it 2-0 on 59. Antonio Rüdiger pulled one back in the 89th.

Mourinho left nobody guessing about where he wanted the conversation to go. The Portuguese built his post-match analysis around the officiating, framing the whole thing as a numbers problem and pointing to two challenges on Fede Valverde and Jude Bellingham that he felt also warranted red cards.

Strip away the controversy and the result fits a pattern that is no longer a blip. These are the numbers worth remembering the next time a Madrid derby lands on your coupon:

• Real Madrid have not won at the Metropolitano since 18 September 2022, a 1-2 win with goals from Rodrygo and Fede Valverde.
• Since then Atlético have three wins and a draw at home against their neighbours in La Liga.
• It was the first time Diego Simeone has beaten Mourinho in La Liga. During the Portuguese coach's first spell at Real Madrid, he won all three league derbies.
• Jonathan David became the first Atlético player this century to score in each of his first three La Liga appearances for the club.

Raphinha's Barcelona have the best start in the club's history

While the derby took the headlines, Barcelona did what they have done all season: win. The 1-3 at the Sánchez-Pizjuán, with a Raphinha hat-trick, left Hansi Flick's side on seven wins from seven league games and on a run of seven consecutive victories to open a campaign — something the club had never managed before.

• Raphinha has 12 goals and 3 assists in seven matchdays, starting every one of them.
• He scored back-to-back hat-tricks: three in the 7-2 win over Racing Santander and three more in the 1-3 at Sevilla.
• He is only the sixth player this century to score hat-tricks in consecutive La Liga matches, after Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Higuaín, Luis Suárez and Griezmann.
• Barcelona reached 28 goals in their first six league games, the second-highest tally in La Liga history behind the 32 scored by Sevilla in 1940-41.

For anyone filling in a coupon, that creates an awkward problem. When a team wins every week, backing them stops paying anything. The value has moved away from Barcelona and into the fixtures underneath them.

What matchday 7 tells you ahead of quiniela jornada 8

The international break interrupts the season exactly when the table was starting to make sense. When club football returns, matchday 8 arrives with internationals just off long flights and several sides in the middle of a form swing. Three readings that hold up against what we have seen so far:

1. The obvious favourites leave no room. Between them, Barcelona and Atlético have won six of their last seven home games; that is not where a winning coupon is decided.
2. The rewarding fixtures sit mid-table: Osasuna, Rayo, Getafe, Real Sociedad and Villarreal are separated by three points and draw far more often than the big sides.
3. The bottom matters more than it looks. Málaga, Elche, Levante and Valencia all reach the break on fewer than six points, and newly promoted clubs tend to spring away-day surprises once the pressure flips.

If you want to see the fifteen fixtures on the next coupon and how long you have to submit your picks, the full round is laid out on jornada 8 of the 2026-27 quiniela. If this is your first season, how it works explains the scoring and the pleno al 15 tie-breaker in about two minutes.

A weekend like this one is far better with someone to argue with. If you fancy turning the derby debate into something more concrete than a group chat, quiniPrats lets you set up a prediction league with friends in a couple of minutes: everyone submits their fifteen picks and the standings update themselves. No rush — the next matchday is always a fine place to start.