Kylian Mbappé scored the goals in Barcelona on Sunday. Andriy Lunin kept Real Madrid in the match long enough for them to count.

The 27-year-old Ukrainian only started at Camp Nou because Thibaut Courtois had been ruled out with flu hours before kick-off, with Illia Voloshyn promoted as emergency cover.

Mbappé put Madrid ahead in the 41st minute when Gerard Martín’s clearance ricocheted into his path. Raphinha equalised just after the hour from a Pedri pass, and the territory from there swung firmly Barcelona’s way. With the match on a knife-edge, Lunin produced a stunning save to deny Martín’s header in the 66th minute. Mbappé’s winner in the 87th was his 100th goal for the club.

Lunin credits mindset, not possession

Barcelona dominated the ball once they had drawn level, but Lunin’s reading of the second half pointed somewhere else.

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“Discipline and attitude were key because Barcelona had more possession,” he told Madrid Universal.

He framed the closing stages as the kind of away day that forces a side to simplify the game: dig in, manage the match, stay together. Teamwork mattered more than any single moment, he said, and he put his critical save down to the daily work with goalkeeping coach Nuno.

‘You train to play, not sit on the bench’

José Mourinho, who returned to the Real Madrid bench this summer thirteen years after his first spell ended, had been just as direct with his stand-in before kick-off, he told Goal afterwards.

“You train to play, not to sit on the bench. Go and play.”

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The Portuguese said Courtois’s late withdrawal had not rattled the dressing room and praised Lunin for a composed display in a fixture that regularly swallows deputies whole.

Barcelona’s lead cut to three

The result closed the gap at the top of LaLiga from six points to three. Barcelona lead on 27 points from nine wins; Madrid have 24 from ten games.

Vinícius Júnior watched from the stand, serving the second game of a four-match league suspension, with Rodrygo and Ferland Mendy also absent through injury. With Courtois’s return dependent on his recovery from illness, Lunin is in line to keep the gloves for Real Madrid’s midweek fixture.

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