José Mourinho Gives Real Madrid Exactly What It Paid For

For all of his flaws as a manager, and there are plenty, José Mourinho always provides clubs the full José Mourinho Experience. The Special One instantly becomes the center of attention wherever he goes, no matter the circumstances, and while that might overshadow his players, it also puts all of the spotlight and the pressure on the manager. In the past, this has been an issue as Mourinho gets carried away with playing up the gimmick, but for a club like 2026–27 Real Madrid, coming off of a season in which two of its players fought and one of them was FORGETTING THINGS, perhaps Mourinho's gravitational pull is exactly what it needed.

Take, for example, Sunday's derby between Madrids Real and Atlético, a 2-1 win for the latter at the Metropolitano over the 10-man visitors.

On paper, the loss could have been a catalyst for a vintage Real Madrid meltdown week in the Spanish press. A second defeat in four La Liga matches, and to its crosstown rival? That's catnip for a press corps and a fandom ready to pounce on any of Real's shortcomings. And yet, instead of talking about how Dean Huijsen got a red card in the 52nd minute, conceding a penalty that eventually gave Atlético a 1-0 lead, or talking about Jonathan David's match-winner seven minutes later, the only thing anyone will remember from this derby is that Mourinho, in classic showman fashion, brought a printout of two screenshots seemingly detailing uncalled Atlético red card fouls:

Putting aside the logistical questions this raises—did Real Madrid bring its own printer to the Metropolitano? Or was Mourinho roaming the underbelly of the stadium looking for one to make his point?—this is a hilarious (and hilariously on-brand) thing to do. Mourinho has never been more at home than when he was at Real Madrid the first time (2010–2013), constantly throwing barbs and jabs at everyone and everything, from La Liga itself to Pep Guardiola's Barcelona to the very journalists he loves to provide with juicy article fodder. Though his post-Real career—consisting of a return to Chelsea, pit stops at Manchester United and Tottenham, an up-and-down stint at Roma, and brief sojourns at Fenerbahçe and Benfica—didn't go anywhere as thrilling, Mourinho managed to parlay the lingering aura of his first run into another full-time appointment with Real following the sacking of Álvaro Arbeloa last season in the midst of Punchgate.

This appointment seemed like a disaster from the word go, but maybe it's the disaster Real needs right now. The roster is lopsided and top-heavy; there is still no truly effective way to play Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius, and Jude Bellingham together, and now the club has added €125-million signing Yan Diamonde to the mix of roaming second-level attackers that also includes Rodrygo, Endrick, Arda Güler, and Brahim Díaz. After missing out on Rodri, the club doesn't have a true defensive anchor in midfield—brawlers-to-partners Aurélien Tchouaméni and Federico Valverde started the derby, and neither are traditional No. 6s—and the center back pairing of Huijsen and former Liverpool man Ibrahima Konaté has not gelled just yet.

In other words, Mourinho was never going to come in and immediately elevate Real to where the club, its fans, and the aforementioned press believe it should always be: competing with Barcelona (already six points up on the table and looking every bit like a juggernaut) domestically and with everyone else in the Champions League. This is a flawed side led by a flawed manager, so why not have some fun with it? Mourinho could have simply complained about the refereeing, but that's no fun. What is fun is printing out blurry screenshots and hoisting them up at the press-conference table like the world's most expensive show-and-tell, a smoking gun drawn in faded ink. What's fun is having a manager who will take time, while blasting the refs, to relieve the pressure from his charges, saying that he will have to "limit myself to hugging my players, who gave it their all and played a first half, showed great class and character, setting us up perfectly to win the second half."

Also, Mourinho isn't even wrong! The earlier foul on his printout was a questionable red card offense: Cristian Romero was going for the ball and it was a bit of a bang-bang play as his studs hit Bellingham's knee; the play was initially ruled a yellow for Bellingham before VAR changed it to a yellow on Romero. But the second was as clear of a sending off as you will ever see: Lee Kang-in goes studs-first into the lower leg of Valverde, a textbook foul that should have earned the Korean international a straight red card. The Technical Committee of Referees (CAT) even admitted after the match that Mourinho wasn't wrong, saying that the Korean midfielder should have been sent off. So, while it might be dramatic for the club to title its own recap of the match "A dreadful refereeing performance decides the derby," just as Mourinho's printout is dramatic, it's hard to blame Real for feeling aggrieved here.

On the other hand, bad calls do happen all over the place, especially in Spain with its, and I will put this kindly, inconsistent refs. So what's Mourinho's goal here? If it's to obfuscate the blame from his players and heap it onto himself like a charismatic sin-eater, mission accomplished. If it's to pressure the refs to give his side favorable calls, though, I'd be surprised if it works, particularly after he went ahead and complained some more about calls in matches not even featuring his side.

In the middle of his impassioned speech, Mourinho noted that various calls in other matches were "laughable," including a disallowed goal and a penalty in favor of Atlético, and a penalty for Barcelona as well. He also specifically pointed out that he thought Lamine Yamal should have been red-carded for a dangerous foul against Athletic Bilbao on Aug. 27.

He's not wrong there, either: Lamine was lucky to not get sent off, though it speaks more to the referee quality in Spain, and the application of VAR, than to any particular conspiracy to keep Real Madrid down. (It's noteworthy that Mourinho had no real complaints about his side's other domestic loss, a 1-0 defeat away at Real Betis on Sep. 4.) That didn't stop Mourinho from dropping a classically passive-aggressive rant about the lack of change, from his perspective, in his 13 years away from La Liga:

In normal circumstances, I'd say we shouldn't give up, of course, that there's much to play for, it's only September. But obviously, these are not normal circumstances. I don't want to get deep into it, but obviously, things are very, very strange. I hoped that coming back to La Liga, I would find things different than when I left them in 2013. But sadly, things are still the same. I thought I’d find a league different from the one I left.

That's the thing about Mourinho: He will have you believing what he wants you to believe, or at least he wants you to think about it long enough that you can begin to see where he's coming from. The Special One is a self-applied nickname (of course it is), but it's also just a fact. No one is doing it like him. Other managers complain about refs, but Mourinho brings physical receipts with him, and then no one talks about the incoherence of the attack, or how easily David scored the game winner, or the fact that Huijsen's foul was also a clear and correct red card. It's all about Mourinho, Mourinho, Mourinho.

The league already seems beyond Real's reach; it's early, but the margins are so slim at the top of La Liga, where the last three champions have notched 94, 88, and 95 points. Still, if only for my own entertainment, I hope Mourinho is able to stick around for longer than, say, Xabi Alonso, who made it only to January of his first season. The José Mourinho Experience is like no other, and I want him to command the attention for as long as possible.