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Updated May 18, 2026

The Special One Return: Why Real Madrid is Turning Back to José Mourinho?

TL;DR

The Santiago Bernabéu is preparing for a tactical earthquake that few saw coming, but everyone is now anticipating. Thirteen years after his stormy departure...

The Special One Return: Why Real Madrid is Turning Back to José Mourinho?

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The Santiago Bernabéu is preparing for a tactical earthquake that few saw coming, but everyone is now anticipating. Thirteen years after his stormy departure from the Spanish capital, José Mourinho is on the verge of making a sensational return as the manager of Real Madrid. The rumor mill has transformed into concrete reality over the last 48 hours, with the Portuguese tactician heavily favored to take the reins from interim boss Álvaro Arbeloa. Real Madrid has endured a thoroughly miserable campaign that concluded without a single major trophy, forcing club president Florentino Pérez to look backward to find a path forward. According to widespread European reports, the Spanish giants are currently in final negotiations to trigger a three-million-euro release clause embedded in Mourinho’s contract with Benfica , making his second coming in Madrid feel completely inevitable. This dramatic managerial pursuit comes in the wake of a sporting and structural collapse at Real Madrid. The 2025–2026 season began with immense promise under Xabi Alonso , but his sudden midseason departure threw the club into a tailspin from which it never recovered. Arbeloa stepped into the managerial vacuum in January, but the legendary former defender was unable to heal a deeply fractured squad. The team’s misery reached a crescendo during a recent El Clásico defeat to Barcelona, where Real Madrid embarrassingly managed only a single shot on target throughout the entire match.

Why Florentino Pérez Demanded Absolute Discipline

Off the pitch, the situation has been even more toxic. Internal ego clashes have dominated the headlines, highlighted by highly publicized training ground friction between Aurélien Tchouaméni and Federico Valverde, Alongside growing resentment over Kylian Mbappé's perceived lifestyle choices during his injury rehabilitation. Confronted with a squad overflowing with superstars but completely devoid of emotional discipline, Florentino Pérez quickly realized that a gentle approach would no longer work. The Madrid president immediately identified Mourinho as the only figure in world football who possesses the sheer force of personality required to restore absolute authority at the club. Interestingly, Arbeloa himself has publicly blessed the potential appointment, telling reporters that he would be delighted to see his former coach return to his rightful home. The transfer market guru Fabrizio Romano has similarly confirmed that Mourinho gave his enthusiastic green light to the project last week, demonstrating a massive desire to write a second chapter with the biggest club In the world .

Mourinho’s First Tenure

To understand why Pérez is willing to gamble on a manager who has spent the last decade collecting more headlines than league titles, one must look back at the incredible foundations Mourinho built during his first tenure Between 2010 And 2013. He arrived at a time when Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona was widely considered the greatest club team in football history, an era of total Catalan dominance that had left Madrid completely demoralized. Mourinho systematically altered the DNA of the club, instilling a ruthless, aggressive, and lightning-fast counter-attacking philosophy that culminated in the historic 2011–2012 "La Liga de los Récords." That legendary squad captured the Spanish league title by accumulating an unprecedented 100 points and scoring an astonishing 121 goals, successfully breaking Barcelona's psychological stranglehold on domestic football. Over his three intense seasons, he won La Liga, a Copa del Rey, and a Supercopa de España, while Fundamentally snapping a curse that had seen Madrid fail to progress past the Champions League round of Sixteen for six consecutive years. The man himself has done very little to suppress the mounting speculation, choosing instead to drop heavily loaded hints to the media. Following Benfica's final match of the season, Mourinho directly acknowledged that his representative, Jorge Mendes, has been actively engaged in conversations with the Real Madrid board. While maintaining a professional respect for his current employers in Lisbon, he openly admitted to Portuguese broadcasters that something major is brewing in the background. With Benfica’s domestic campaign officially concluded, the ten-day window to trigger his low-cost release clause has officially opened, meaning a formal announcement from the Spanish capital could arrive within days.

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