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Injuries & Fitness Real Racing Club de Santander · Saturday, 31 October 2026 at 18:19 CET

Racing Santander vs Real Madrid: Mourinho's side favoured at El Sardinero

Racing Santander host Real Madrid at El Sardinero in round 11. Form, team news and five AI predictions all point to a Madrid win.

predict.game Sources: 6 ↓

In short

  • Real Madrid are third on 24 points from 10 games, with 25 goals scored and 10 conceded; Racing are 15th on 11 points with 26 conceded.
  • The Poisson baseline gives Madrid a 63.2% win probability and a most likely score of 1-2, while the five AI models range from 75% to 86%.
  • Madrid are without Rodrygo, Raúl Asencio and Ferland Mendy, and Aurélien Tchouaméni was listed as doubtful in late October; Racing are missing Simon Eriksson.

Madrid arrive on a winning run

Real Madrid come to Cantabria third in La Liga with 24 points from 10 matches. They have won eight and lost two, scoring 25 goals and conceding 10. José Mourinho’s side have won four of their last five league games. The latest was a 2-1 victory away at FC Barcelona on 25 October. Before that came a 4-1 home win over Sevilla and a 1-0 home win over Villarreal. The only recent blemish is a 2-1 defeat at Atlético Madrid on 20 September, and they followed that with wins rather than a slump. Before the Atlético game they had won 3-2 at Elche.

The site’s team ratings back up the table. Madrid’s attack rating is 1.42 and their defence rating is 0.82, the lower figure being the better one for a defence. Those numbers come from a sample of 20 matches, so they carry more weight than Racing’s 10-match sample. Off the pitch, BBC Sport [1] that Jude Bellingham has agreed to extend his Madrid contract until 2031. That is a sign of stability around a squad that is winning.

Racing’s defensive problem

Racing Santander sit 15th with 11 points from 10 games, a record of three wins, two draws and five defeats. The numbers that stand out are at the back: 26 goals conceded against 15 scored. Their defence rating is 1.54, the weakest figure on the sheet, against an attack rating of 1.04. Two heavy defeats drive much of that. They lost 7-2 at Barcelona on 16 September and 5-0 at Celta Vigo three days later.

The recent picture is mixed. Racing beat Espanyol 2-1 at home on 24 October, which ended a run of defeat and a draw. Before that they lost 2-0 at Osasuna on 18 October and drew 2-2 with Valencia at home a week earlier. Scoring is not the issue: they have netted in four of their last five games, and the exception was the Celta defeat. Keeping chances out is the difficulty, and Madrid carry the sharper attack. There is no head-to-head record in the input to draw on.

Team news on both sides

Madrid’s absentee list is long. Marca [2] on 20 October that Raúl Asencio and Rodrygo were both injured and unavailable. A separate Marca piece [3] Rodrygo’s return between December and January, so he will not be involved here. Marca also [4] Ferland Mendy among three long-term injured players Mourinho inherited. It noted that Tchouaméni was doubtful with a physical issue carried over from the World Cup. That was dated 20 October, so his status should be checked closer to kick-off.

Racing have fewer known problems. Marca [5] that Simon Eriksson is out with ongoing recovery. Julen Agirrezabala is expected in goal, according to [6], and Íñigo Vicente is expected to start. Sergio Canales is also expected to play, and loanee Yassir Zabiri is tipped to keep a key role. The match is at Campos de Sport de El Sardinero, with kick-off at 15:15 UTC.

What the predictions say

The Poisson baseline, built from recorded results, projects expected goals of 1.36 for Racing and 2.55 for Madrid. It gives Madrid a 63.2% chance of winning, Racing 18.9% and a draw 17.9%. Its most likely score is 1-2. It puts both teams scoring at 68.4% and more than 2.5 goals at 74.7%.

All five AI models pick an away win, and each is more confident than the baseline:

  • Claude Keeper: 0-2, with Madrid at 86%.
  • Kimi Cool: 0-2, at 77%.
  • Gemini Thunder: 1-3, at 77%.
  • GPT Striker: 1-3, at 85%.
  • DeepThinker: 1-2, at 75%.

The disagreement is over whether Racing score. Two models keep a clean sheet for Madrid, while three allow Racing a goal. The baseline’s both-teams-to-score figure of 68.4% supports the latter view, given Racing’s habit of scoring and their porous defence. Madrid’s injuries are the main argument for caution, but the models treat the gap in form and ratings as larger than the gap in availability. The baseline’s 63.2% is the more measured view of an away win.

Sources

  1. BBC Sport: Bellingham agrees new Real deal - Saturday's gossip bbc.co.uk ↩
  2. Marca: Mourinho recupera a Vini para el Leipzig marca.com ↩
  3. Marca: Rodrygo, cada vez más cerca marca.com ↩
  4. Marca: 100 días de Mou: 81% de triunfos, azote del caso Negreira, pacificador y sanador de una gran 'herida' marca.com ↩
  5. Marca: Racing de Santander - Espanyol | Reacción o caída en picado: previa, análisis, pronóstico y predicción marca.com ↩
  6. Marca: Agirrezabala marca el camino para ganar al Barça: “Hay que hacer un partido prácticamente perfecto” marca.com ↩

Written by predict.game's models from the sources listed. How our content is made →

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