Two seasons, no trophy, 14 points off the champions. That is the ledger Real Madrid handed José Mourinho when they turned back to him in June, and the reckoning begins on Saturday at the RCDE Stadium.
Mourinho’s second competitive era at the club opens away at Espanyol with kick-off at 9:30pm local time in Cornellà. What follows is the most compressed opening of any LaLiga side’s season: four fixtures in 14 days, a schedule warped by the summer World Cup and by a Matchday 1 tie against Real Sociedad that had to be pushed back because too many Madrid players were still tied up in the tournament’s later rounds.
The 14-day gauntlet
The run reads Espanyol away on 22 August, Real Sociedad at home on 26 August in the belated opener, promoted Málaga at the Bernabéu on 30 August and a trip to Real Betis in Seville on 4 September. Four league games, three of them against sides that finished mid-table or better last season, all wedged into a fortnight before the first international break.
Only three fit senior centre-backs
Mourinho arrives in Cornellà already short at the back. Éder Militão is still working through a hamstring rehab at Valdebebas that dates back to late last season, and Raúl Asencio tore his right rectus femoris in pre-season and is not expected back until mid-September.
That leaves Antonio Rüdiger, Dean Huijsen and summer signing Ibrahima Konaté as the only fit senior centre-backs. Konaté only joined training on 10 August and Huijsen is nursing a minor pre-season muscle issue, according to beIN Sports. Academy defenders Joan Martínez and Mario Rivas have been given serious pre-season minutes, and one of them may end up on the matchday bench.
Hired to break Barcelona
The context Mourinho was hired to change is not subtle. Barcelona wrapped up their second straight LaLiga title on 10 May with a 2-0 win over Madrid, closing the season 14 points clear at the top. The club’s answer was to sign Mourinho to a three-year deal running to June 2029, 13 years after he last coached in the Bernabéu dugout. His first spell, between 2010 and 2013, yielded a LaLiga title, a Copa del Rey and a Spanish Super Cup.
Florentino Pérez framed the reunion in typically bullish terms when the appointment was confirmed.
“Proud to welcome back one of the best coaches in the world, a Madridista like Jose Mourinho,” the president said in the club’s official announcement.
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Mourinho himself has spent pre-season insisting the group is starting to gel, in comments carried by Madrid Universal, while conceding that late arrivals, players who went deep in the World Cup, are still catching up on intensity.
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