Jose Jordan/AFP/Getty ImagesYoung substitute Alvaro Morata earned Real Madrid a late 2-1 win over Levante.

All hail Jose Mourinho! Champion of the Cantera! The 'Special One' gave a chance to Alvaro Morata - Madrid born, Cantera schooled and darling of the Madridistas - and he took it. Madrid were being held 1-1 by Levante at a rain-soaked Ciudad de Valencia on Sunday night when Morata was introduced. Xabi Alonso floated in a free-kick in the 84th minute and Morata was there to glance his header into the back of the net to give Los Blancos three points. Just how crucial could they be?

I had to write that opening paragraph with my tongue somewhat in my cheek. Madrid's Cantera, and Castilla sides have been a hot topic of debate in recent weeks. Has Mourinho been giving youngsters at Madrid a fair crack of the whip? Of course he has - more so than most, according to Mourinho himself. He reeled off a list of players, albeit somewhat spun in his favour, to prove just that at a press conference. He called himself the "champion of the debutants". Arguments between Mourinho and Castilla manager Alberto Toril. A whole can of worms, a whole other argument. What, exactly, is the role of Castilla and how big a part do Madrid's young stars of the future play in the current set-up in the Spanish capital?

Quite a big one, going on tonight's performance. A draw at Levante would have seen Los Blancos ten points adrift of La Liga leaders Barcelona and left Mourinho and his men looking at a long, harsh winter with a bit of a mountain to climb in the quest of retaining their league title. Every point counts, and for Madrid to pull a victory out of the bag in the manner that they did on a wet Sunday night at Levante will give them a big boost, and it was Morata, the youngster, who grabbed the decisive goal.

It was the last throw of the dice for Mourinho. Why didn't he put Morata on sooner? Was it true, that he didn't trust giving youth a chance, especially in the big times of need. When Cristiano Ronaldo came off at half-time owing to feeling dizzy following a forearm in the face from David Navarro, Raul Albion was introduced and the Madrid boss shuffled his pack. Kaka was next to be introduced. With time ticking away Morata, with both Karim Benzema and Gonzalo Higuain out injured, was the only option left - and he delivered.

Will it give Mourinho a new-found confidence in the young players at his disposal? Will it change his philosophy? Especially with the media, and to some extent the fans, on his back to do just that. Probably not, not on the whole, anyway. What it might do is give Mou a bit more confidence in Morata, a player who's been touted for so long as the next big thing to come from the Cantera, in future games this season. It was his first goal for Madrid's first team and he got his team, and his manager, out of a big spot of bother. Don't expect to see a flood of young talent being given a chance all of a sudden, though. You could almost hear the thoughts going around Mourinho's head when Morata popped in the winner. "I can't deal with more Cantera questions", "Should I send Aitor Karanka [Madrid's assistant] to do the post-match press conference?".

The game itself resembled more of a water polo match than a football match. I saw, and joined in with, a whole host of water-based puns on Twitter during the match, so I won't bore you with more on here. Safe to say the conditions were horrendous, and you could almost see Mourinho complaining that the match shouldn't have gone ahead had his side not grabbed all three points. Perhaps he had a point. The conditions were so bad that both teams were opting to flick the ball up and deploy long ball tactics after figuring out after five minutes that they weren't getting anywhere fast with short passes. It'd have been interesting to see Barcelona try their tika-taka football on the pitch, for sure.

Credit to Madrid in how they dealt with the conditions. Levante were probably licking their lips when they saw the boggy pitch. No fast running with the ball at the feet of Ronaldo, di Maria or Callejon. No cutting through-balls. Instead, long balls forward - something the hosts would have preferred to deal with. It was a match that resembled two young boys playing a computer football game for the first time. Late tackles, poor passes, lots of missed chances - mostly down to the pitch. Los Blancos were up to the challenge, however, and they led 1-0 at the break. Ronaldo with a clever flick up on the thigh from a loose Levante header from a set-piece and he drilled the ball into the back of the net.

In my pre-match piece I said Ronaldo would be the right man to take the No.9 position in the absence of Benzema and Higuain but, although he got on the scoresheet, the conditions put paid to any kind of fluency in the visitors' attack. In fact, it was pretty much a half to forget for Ronaldo. If the pouring rain wasn't enough Navarro gave the Portuguese a warm welcome with a forearm smash into the face. Blood pouring above one eye and lengthy treatment required, forcing him eventually to come off at half-time owing to feeling dizzy. He's not going to like that cut when he looks in the mirror...

His attacker, Navarro, was in the thick of the action, too. After that incident his loose header fell to the feet of Ronaldo to open the scoring and in the second half he fouled Jose Callejon right on the line of the penalty box to give Xabi Alonso the chance for Los Blancos to regain their lead. Chance missed. A poor penalty, although Gustavo Munua, the Levante goalkeeper, did seem off his line and the penalty should have been retaken. What if Ronaldo was on the pitch? Probably a second goal, and one off moving sixth on the list of Madrid's all-time list of goalscorers.

It wasn't pretty. It was never going to be - it couldn't be, but Madrid got the job done. Offer Jose Mourinho three points with a scrappy 1-0 win minutes before kick-off and he'd have bitten your hand off. Conditions aside, Madrid's record at Levante hasn't been great anyway. A 1-0 defeat there last season, a 0-0 stalemate the season before. The hosts have been going well this season, too, and a win for them would have taken them level on points with Los Blancos. The visitors had the better chances - Pepe, Sergio Ramos and di Maria all guilty of missing great chances to have Madrid home and, in a sense, dry. Levante had one too, through Juanlu - and he should have done better - but Madrid deserved the three points.

Follow me on Twitter @nicholasrigg

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