Mourinho slams Real Madrid's 'soft performance' in defeat to Barcelona

Jose Mourinho has slammed Real Madrid's "soft performance" in their 1-0 Clasico defeat to Barcelona on Saturday. 

Ivan Rakitic scored in the first half at the Santiago Bernabeu and the Croatian's goal stood up as the only tally of the match. 

With the loss, Madrid fell 12 points behind first-place Barcelona, effectively ending their La Liga title hopes for the season. 

It was also the second loss to Barca in the span of four days for Madrid, with Santiago Solari's side having fallen 3-0 on Wednesday in the second leg of their Copa del Rey semi-final.

Mourinho, who managed Real Madrid between 2010 and 2013, saw his former team low on confidence in Saturday's Clasico. 

"It was not a happy performance. It was not the performance of a happy team," Mourinho said on beIN Sports .

"It was not the performance of a team with great belief and self-esteem.

"Clearly they are now in a zone after a few bad results, especially in the cup match, where they are in a low."

The Portuguese, who was sacked by Manchester United in December, went on to say that Madrid were unable to rise to the occasion against the runaway Liga leaders. 

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"They couldn't bring to the game what I used to call the temperature of the big matches," Mourinho continued.

"They were passive. I cannot speak about a bad performance, it's not a bad performance, I think it's just a soft performance.

"Sometimes you play like this against medium teams and in the end you get a positive result, but against the top teams you have to do much more than this if you want to win."

Mourinho would also accuse Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos of deliberately hitting Lionel Messi in a contentious clash right before half-time. 

"I think Sergio Ramos' action probably is coming from a player that knows the game has to change," Mourinho said . 

"And probably he does it with the intention of creating a different temperature for the second half, because the game until then was really soft, in my opinion."