Real Madrid open the 2026-27 season with two men effectively on trial: club president Florentino Pérez, freshly re-elected, and José Mourinho, the manager he has bet the club's near future on for a second time. A new ONE podcast episode, hosted by Uri Reich, Amit Levinthal and Chami Almog, lays out exactly how high the stakes are after the most turbulent Madrid summer in years.
The trigger for the reset was painful: Real Madrid went through the 2025-26 season without a major trophy, their second barren campaign in a row. Xabi Alonso, who had arrived with fanfare in June 2025, was sacked in January 2026 after a heavy defeat to Barcelona, with club legend Álvaro Arbeloa installed as caretaker for the rest of the season.
Pérez's answer was to reach back to a manager he first hired in 2010. Mourinho, who led Madrid to the 2011-12 La Liga title and broke a string of domestic scoring records during his first spell before leaving in 2013, returned this July on a three-year contract. Madrid reportedly had to pay Benfica around €15m to release him early, roughly €9m more than the exit clause would have cost had the move been completed before the end of May.
The rehiring is a calculated gamble. Mourinho's most recent stops, at Roma, Fenerbahçe and Benfica, produced a Conference League title but no domestic championships, and his 15-month spell in Istanbul ended without silverware. The ONE hosts frame his second Bernabéu tenure as a test of whether the 'Special One' can still deliver at the very top, and of whether Pérez can justify handing him the keys again.
Money has not been the obstacle. According to the podcast, this has been the most expensive transfer window in Real Madrid's history, built around Yan Diomande, signed from RB Leipzig for a fixed fee near €125m that can rise with add-ons toward becoming the club's record purchase. Marc Cucurella, Bernardo Silva, Ibrahima Konaté, Denzel Dumfries and Carlos Espí have also arrived as Mourinho reshapes a squad the hosts say still lacks a genuine left-back and a controlling presence in midfield.
Some of that rebuilding work was visible, and some notably wasn't, in Wednesday's pre-season friendly in Galicia. Real Madrid beat Deportivo La Coruña 1-0, Brahim Díaz scoring the only goal shortly before half-time, with Bernardo Silva and Dumfries starting and Espí introduced at the break. Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappé, Cucurella, Konaté and Yan Diomande were all left out, still working back at Valdebebas.
Off the pitch, Pérez has secured the piece of business the club considers most urgent. Vinícius Júnior signed a new contract through 2032 this month, ending months of speculation about a possible move to Arsenal and locking down the player Madrid see as central to life after this transfer window. The podcast frames it alongside the futures of Bellingham and Mbappé as the connective tissue Mourinho now has to make work as one team.
The declared target, as the hosts put it, is nothing less than stopping Barcelona winning a third straight La Liga title while chasing a 16th European Cup. Pérez himself has said publicly that the club will "fight until the end" for that trophy. With a rebuilt, expensive squad and a manager back for redemption, Real Madrid's margin for another trophyless season looks vanishingly small.
