Florentino Perez is again weighing a return for José Mourinho to the Real Madrid job, even as Mourinho remains under contract at Benfica and his recent work there has been described as more ordinary than special.
The push for Mourinho comes as Real Madrid finish a season without a trophy for the second year running, with no manager lined up for next season and results on the pitch offering little comfort: the club are already out of the Champions League and sit closer to third-place Villarreal than to La Liga leaders Barcelona.
Perez has repeatedly turned his mind back to Mourinho — the pair discussed a reunion in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2023, and they are talking again now — a pattern that recalls the president’s 2010 decision to bring Mourinho to the Bernabeu and the successful 2010–2013 spell that produced the 2011–12 title run of 100 points, plus a Copa del Rey and the Spanish Super Cup.
The numbers underline the instability Perez is trying to fix. Xabi Alonso left the club in January with a 74% win ratio; his successor, Álvaro Arbeloa, has managed five games fewer in La Liga but already recorded more defeats and owns a 64% win percentage. Two days after Arbeloa took charge, Real Madrid suffered a shock Copa del Rey defeat by second-tier Albacete. Perez does not appear to be a fan of Arbeloa as a manager, and the club’s internal argument now is that an organiser is needed to impose order on a talented but chaotic squad.
That line of thinking — bring in a disciplinarian who will steady the dressing room — has driven several previous appointments. Rafa Benítez, Julen Lopetegui and Xabi Alonso were all chosen under the same premise, and none lasted more than a few months, a record that complicates any simple return-to-form narrative for Mourinho.
There is also a clear contradiction in the case for Mourinho. On paper he is the man who solved the Bernabeu’s humiliation by Barcelona in 2010 and delivered the club to a record points haul in 2011–12. Yet his trophy timeline is thin: he has not won a league title for 11 years and his last piece of silverware was the 2022 Conference League. His recent Champions League knockout work against Real Madrid was judged less than exemplary, and observers say his Benfica team sit only second in Liga Portugal and have not shown the kind of dominance that would silence doubts.
Inside the club, voices point to a deeper problem than tactics. Former players have suggested that managing the dressing room is the decisive skill at Real; Sergio Ramos has argued that dressing-room management matters more than a coach’s tactical knowledge. Perez himself has framed prior endings with Mourinho as mutually agreed, insisting in 2013 that nobody had been sacked and that both sides had decided to end the relationship. Yet Perez’s decision-making since then shows he remains ready to bend that mutual history back toward Mourinho when he believes it will restore control.
The practical hurdles are obvious. Mourinho is contracted to Benfica, making any approach legally and logistically complicated. At the same time, Perez is intent on taking control this offseason after another trophyless campaign, and his preference for a known quantity appears to outweigh concerns about recent form: sources close to the situation say Perez is more fixated on Mourinho than on other big names under discussion.
The decisive question is now straightforward: will Mourinho accept leaving Benfica and can he restore the kind of order Perez wants where previous organisers have failed? If Perez pushes, the club will again place its chips on a manager whose earlier Bernabeu record is unmatched by his outcomes of the past decade — and whose return would test whether a president’s conviction can overcome both contractual friction and a run of middling results.
