Mourinho to return to Real Madrid, hints former club President

Former Real Madrid President Ramon Calderon hinted on Twitter that Mourinho will take over as the Manager in the Summer from Santiago Solari. Real Madrid have struggled to replace Zinedine Zidane who won nine titles as Manager including three consecutive Champions league titles.

The club sacked his successor Julen Lopetegui after just 4 wins in 10 league games. His replacement Santiago Solari overturned the fortunes of Real Madrid by winning his first 4 games and got them back on track. Despite the turnaround, the club find themselves 9 points behind league leaders Barcelona after a shocking home defeat to Girona. To make matters worse, the side from the Spanish capital were beaten 3-0 by their fierce rivals Barcelona in the Copa Del Rey with Luis Suarez grabbing a brace.

The El Classico rivals are poised to clash again today in the La Liga and a defeat would cast further doubts over the future of Manager Santiago Solari despite being contracted until June 2021. The timing of Ramon Calderon’s twitter post is adding fuel to the fire. His post reads ” I have a feeling, and maybe a little more, that Mourinho will be on the Real Madrid bench next season”.

Jose Mourinho managed Real Madrid from 2010 to 2013, winning the Copa Del Ray, La Liga and Supercopa de España. Despite the impressive first two seasons, Real Madrid were below par in the third season under Jose, who enjoyed a strained relationship with some of his star players such as Casillas and Ramos during his Madrid spell.

Mourinho returned to England after the disastrous third season which was described as the worst of his career (so far). He won the Premier League title in the second season of his second spell at Chelsea but endured a terrible third season. The club sacked Mourinho with club losing 9 of the 16 Premier league matches.

After huge speculation that Mourinho will head to the red side of Manchester to rival Pep Guardiola who took over Manchester City, he replaced the ex-Barcelona boss Van Gaal at United. The Portuguese Manager won the Europa League, Community shield and the EFL cup in his firth season but finished trophyless in the second.

While Pep Guardiola’s centurions broke records by playing attractive football, Jose’s United played second fiddle in Manchester and his defensive tactics was starting to get questioned. Training ground bust-ups with World Cup winner Paul Pogba enraged United fans. Most pundits stated one of them were bound to leave. With United out of top 4 and languishing in sixth spot, United relieved Mourinho of his duties and replaced him with Ole Gunnar Solksjaer who is enjoying an impressive start to his Managerial career at United.

Despite his recent hiccups, there should be no doubting the Managerial quality of Jose Mourinho. With incredible success at Chelsea, Inter and Porto, he will go down in history as one of the greatest Managers ever. However, Mourinho has struggled in the past few years. Real Madrid, Chelsea and United have performed better after firing the Special One.

Real Madrid President Florentino Perez is still believed to be a huge admirer of Jose Mourinho but it is tough to forget that the Manager’s spell ended disastrously. Jose was visibly unpleasant through out his final season. Mourinho recently disclosed his expectations from his next club and stated “I want to work with people that I love. People I want to work with, that I am happy to work with, with whom I share the same ideas. It was what I had at Inter”.

Managers don’t get offered enough time and control at Real Madrid with the expectations always over the roof. Ruthlessness of the President has been the key to success in Real Madrid. Structural Empathy has never been a guarantee for any Manager at the Bernabeu. It is hard to see Perez sacrificing ruthlessness for Structural Empathy.

Sid Lowe told ESPN “This is a president who doesn’t trust in managers, he doesn’t believe in them. He’s only really given authority to one manager and he still sees Mourinho as the only person that has confronted the dressing room and has taken them on, has been the star and has genuinely had the gravitas that he wants in a manager despite all the other things. I have no doubt that Perez is thinking to himself, ‘I kind of really want to do this but I know the risk.’ That’s a battle that he has to decide on”.

“He has approached Mourinho to ask him what he thinks about coming back previously. I don’t know if this will happen but it’s far more plausible than it looks on the face of it. From the outside everyone looks at it and asks how it could happen, but it could”.

Editorial Team

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LosMejor's Editorial Team includes a team of experts who cover the UEFA Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup and the Carabao Cup. The Editorial team is headed by Deepak Selvan.