Kylian Mbappe scored twice as Real Madrid beat Rayo Vallecano 4-1, pulling level with Barcelona at the top of La Liga. Rayo, a club whose entire annual budget would not cover a fraction of what Madrid pays Mbappe alone, held for less than an hour before the gap did what the gap always does to a team like that. Mbappe's second put the scoreline out of argument, and Madrid's front three did the rest.

Level on points with two games in hand or not is a technicality; what matters is that Madrid have gone the whole opening stretch without the kind of stumble that turned last season into a Barcelona coronation early. Rayo were never the measuring stick here anyway. The measuring stick arrives when Madrid and Barcelona actually play each other, and every point banked now is a point that stops that fixture from being a coronation instead of a fight. Mbappe just made sure it's still a fight.