Real Madrid is bringing back Jose Mourinho for a second stint some 13 years after he left the club, the Spanish powerhouse said Thursday. The Portuguese coach joins on a three-year contract and will officially take charge on July 13, when the preseason starts, the club said. Mourinho left no one in Spain indifferent to his abrasive, yet undeniably successful, managerial style when he first coached Madrid from 2010 to 2013. During his first run, he led Madrid to a Spanish league title and a Copa del Rey crown. Yet he is more remembered for his confrontational personality that ended up splitting his own squad and alienating all but the most hardcore fans, as well as a large part of the local media.
He will now inherit an underachieving team and rejoin a club in disarray.
Madrid hasn’t won a major title in two years with superstar striker Kylian Mbappe onboard. The club went through two coaches in Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa this season.
The record 15-time European Cup winners have furthermore been embarrassed by series of unseemly events. There was a fight between players, fans jeering the team, and players questioning Arbeloa’s decisions.
Club president Florentino Pérez added to the sense of a club in crisis by giving a press conference to announce he would call early elections, which he then won, while blasting the media for what he considered a campaign to force him to quit.
Pérez’s re-election paved the way for Mourinho’s return.
Mourinho famously proclaimed himself as “a special one” over two decades ago when he was introduced as Chelsea’s coach, having led FC Porto to a surprising Champions League title in 2004.
He lived up that boastful claim, making Chelsea a Premier League champion before he steered Inter Milan to the 2010 Champions League title, beating a seemingly unstoppable Barcelona en route to the final.
That convinced Pérez that Mourinho was the ideal coach to topple a Barcelona led by Pep Guardiola and Lionel Messi in La Liga.
The rivalry between Mourinho and Guardiola took the contests between their clubs to new heights.
Following a 2011 defeat to Barcelona, Mourinho outraged Barcelona supporters, and many neutral ones, by saying he “would be ashamed” to win a Champions League like Guardiola did, claiming Barcelona was favored by the referees. Mourinho even got physical, poking an assistant coach of Guardiola in the eye during a scuffle between their teams later that year.
But after winning the 2012 La Liga title, Madrid and Mourinho parted ways in 2013 with three years left on his contract. That followed a shock loss in the Copa del Rey final to Atletico Madrid and with media reports of him falling out with some of his players like fan favorite Iker Casillas.
Now 63, Mourinho has lost his status of being a serial champion who only coaches the elite clubs.
His brilliant career has dimmed after a frustrating spell at Manchester United from 2016-2018. Since then, he has coached at Tottenham, Roma, Fenerbahce, and, last season, Benfica.
His only trophy since leaving United was the 2022 Conference League, Europe’s third-tier competition, won with Roma.
But it seems that Pérez believes Mourinho’s experience and his strong personality are just what Madrid needs to take on a Barcelona side that is once again dominant thanks to its new talisman, Lamine Yamal.
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