José Mourinho Begins Second Real Madrid Tenure with Quiet Start

The second coming of José Mourinho at Real Madrid did not begin with fireworks or grand speeches. It began with blood tests.

On Monday morning, 13 July 2026, the Portuguese coach officially opened pre-season at Valdebebas, sending his players first through medical examinations at the Clínica Sanitas facility before stepping onto the training pitch for a 17:00 session that felt more like a prologue than a premiere.

A Skeleton Squad and a Strange Summer

Day one was deliberately light. The World Cup has carved a hole straight through Madrid’s pre-season, and it shows.

Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Jr, Thibaut Courtois and the rest of the international core are still away, their return staggered over the coming weeks. In their place, a different group took centre stage: Eduardo Camavinga, Franco Mastantuono, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dean Huijsen were among the first to work directly under Mourinho in his new tenure.

It made for an unusual first roll call. No marquee attacking trident, no full spine of the side, no immediate glimpse of how the stars will fit together. Instead, Mourinho’s first real look came with a mixed group and a notebook in hand.

To round out the numbers, he will lean on players from Castilla. That choice is partly necessity, partly opportunity. The calendar has forced his hand, but it also hands him early access to the club’s next wave. For now, though, it underlines one thing: any definitive judgement on this Madrid will have to wait. The squad Mourinho truly coaches will only exist once the World Cup dust has settled.

A Club Searching for Stability

Mourinho returns to a club that has been busy changing direction without ever quite finding its road.

Xabi Alonso’s project lasted roughly a year. Álvaro Arbeloa stepped up from youth-team duties and provided only about six months of relative calm before the club moved on again. The pattern is clear enough: promising ideas, short runs, and a trophy cabinet that has not matched the talent on the pitch with any regular rhythm.

That is the context into which Mourinho walks back through the door. His mandate is brutally simple: turn individual brilliance into consistent results, and do it quickly enough to silence the doubts that linger from his first spell and the turbulence since.

He has not been waiting for this first training session to get started. Since Florentino Pérez secured re-election as club president and confirmed Mourinho’s return, the coach has been working behind the scenes. Monday was not the beginning of the project, just the moment when the theory finally met the grass.

Reports in Spain point to early moves on recruitment and adjustments to his coaching staff, the kind of groundwork that usually signals a clear, early attempt to stamp authority on a dressing room. The pitch at Valdebebas is now the stage on which those plans will either take shape or unravel.

Doors Open, Questions Waiting

For all the symbolism of Mourinho’s first day back, some of the key pieces of this new era remain deliberately unresolved.

A formal press presentation has yet to be scheduled, with no date confirmed. The club is in no rush to stage the big unveiling while the squad is still incomplete and the market still active.

Transfer business sits in that same holding pattern. Both the entry and exit doors at Real Madrid are open, even if the backbone of the squad is regarded as broadly settled. The real intrigue lies in the margins: who is trusted, who is moved on, and which profiles Mourinho insists on adding to bend the team closer to his image.

For now, the work is quieter. Conditioning sessions, tactical outlines, first impressions. Camavinga setting the tone in midfield drills. Mastantuono and Huijsen trying to convince the new boss they belong in his long-term plans. Alexander-Arnold adapting to the demands of a coach who rarely tolerates defensive laxity.

The World Cup has delayed the moment when Mourinho can look around and see his full arsenal. When that day comes, the excuses will evaporate. The questions that have hovered over Madrid for the past few seasons will return with greater force.

Can this squad finally turn its scattered brilliance into something relentless?

Mourinho’s answer started, fittingly, with a medical check and a modest evening session. The real response will arrive when the missing stars walk back into Valdebebas and discover exactly what kind of Madrid they are returning to.