Florentino Pérez pressed the Special One button again after two straight trophyless seasons at Real, but Lamine Yamal and co remain title favour

 Florentino Pérez pressed the Special One button again after two straight trophyless seasons at Real, but Lamine Yamal and co remain title favour

Alot has changed since José Mourinho was last appointed Real Madrid manager, but a lot has also not changed. Before his first game in charge in 2010, Spain had just become world champions, their extra-time winner in the final scored by a Barcelona player after their opponents, who had been reduced to 10 men, had tried to kick them off the park. Like then, Mourinho’s task is to take down a Barcelona team that have won two La Liga titles in succession. And like then, he has a host of world-class talent at his disposal.

Florentino Pérez is also still around – and he is largely the reason why Mourinho is back. After the chief executive, José Ángel Sánchez, was said to have led the charge to appoint Xabi Alonso last summer, the 79-year-old club president has made the decision his own this time. He promised Mourinho, who won La Liga with 100 points in his first spell, would return if he was re-elected in snap elections in June and the announcement came, in true Pérez style, on the opening day of the World Cup.

Jorge Valdano, the former Madrid player and manager who worked upstairs during Mourinho’s first tenure, was of the opinion that a lot has indeed changed since then. “Almost 15 years have passed: football is no longer the same, society is not the same, Florentino is no longer the same, and Mourinho certainly won’t be either,” he told A Bola.

It was champagne all round at Real Madrid at Christmas of 2012. But by the end of that season, José Mourinho had left, after having public rows with both Iker Casillas (left) and Sergio Ramos (second left). Photograph: Ángel Martínez/Real Madrid/Getty Images

But Mourinho was the outstanding law-and-order candidate. Even after Alonso’s sacking last January, Madrid’s season continued its descent into chaos under Álvaro Arbeloa. In May, Federico Valverde was taken to hospital for stitches after a bust-up with his teammate Aurélien Tchouaméni. A few days later, Madrid conceded the league title in the clásico and would finish the campaign trophyless. By then an online petition calling for Kylian Mbappé to leave had reached 30 million signatures. Speculation about the future of Vinícius Júnior, who had 12 months left on his contract, would not go away.

Not everything has gone right since – a £129m bid for Julián Álvarez was turned down by Atlético Madrid, while Barcelona look more likely to sign Rodri from Manchester City – but Madrid’s preparations for the new campaign have exuded an air of calm. Mourinho began work a month before his contract started and has not had an official unveiling in front of the media. “It’s not about working at Real Madrid, it is working for Real Madrid,” he said sternly in a short in-house interview at the start of pre-season. The soundbites are limited to his new Netflix documentary. There has been no globetrotting summer tour either; just a series of low-key friendlies across Europe.

Perhaps most importantly, after all that Arsenal talk, Vinícius has signed a new six-year deal. “Vinícius has become one of the most important players in one of the most successful periods in our history,” the club said. Mourinho will have to find a system that gets the best out of him, Mbappé and Jude Bellingham, not to mention a new galáctico, the £115m winger Yan Diomandé, who was playing across town for Leganés B in Spain’s fifth tier only last year.

Yan Diomandé caught the eye at the World Cup, and has now become the most expensive player in Real Madrid’s history. Photograph: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

Diomandé made his Leganés first-team debut at the Bernabéu in March 2025. “Who makes their debut at 18 against Real Madrid? It was a dream. And then it was a nightmare,” Diomandé wrote in the Players’ Tribune this summer, while he was shining for Côte d’Ivoire at the World Cup, in a raw and emotional article dedicated to his sister Roxane, who died aged 15 after her drink was spiked at a party, just weeks after her brother’s La Liga debut.

Supporting Diomandé and Vinícius down the left wing will be Marc Cucurella who, along with Bernardo Silva, Ibrahima Konaté, Denzel Dumfries and the 6ft 4in striker Carlos Espí, are all signings that should adapt easily to Mourinho’s coaching. But of all the star quality on the pitch, it is the Portuguese coach who will attract the most attention.

By landing the Real Madrid job again, Mourinho has staged a comeback few expected after his later struggles in the Premier League and a tour of Europe that delivered mixed results. His orchestrating of Benfica’s remarkable Champions League escape against Madrid last season, with the goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin’s late goal, thrust him back into the spotlight. But his disappointing comments after Vinícius accused Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni of racist abuse – Prestianni was ultimately banned by Uefa for “homophobic conduct” – were criticised by Kick It Out as “a form of gaslighting”. “Mourinho is Mourinho,” said Arbeloa.

It looked unlikely at points last season and even this summer, but Vinícius Junior has signed a new long-term contract at Real Madrid. Photograph: Bernadett Szabó/Reuters

After returning for pre-season, Vinícius said: “It has gone very well, getting to know the new coach … Mourinho wants me to be as I have always been: happy, cheerful and playing my football.” There has been no suggestion of any lingering bad blood.

Source - Guardian