Jose Mourinho is set to make a sensational return to Real Madrid for a second spell in charge.
Benfica boss Mourinho, who broke the dominance of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona when he led Madrid to the LaLiga title during his first spell in 2012, will return to a deeply divided club coming off a trophy-less season.
Indeed, Madrid are set to finish a distant second to champions Barcelona, who hold a 11-point lead at the top with a game remaining.
Bridging that gap to a club seemingly in perfect harmony, with Barca confirming a contract extension for Hansi Flick on Monday, will not be an easy task for a coach whose last league title came in 2015 with Chelsea.
And there are several issues he must solve in order for Mourinho and Madrid to even get close to wresting the LaLiga crown from Barcelona.
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Unite the dressing room
The Madrid dressing room is a fractured one. The build-up to the Clasico defeat that confirmed Barcelona’s title was dominated by infighting as players literally came to blows.
Alvaro Carreras was involved in an altercation with Antonio Rudiger, before captain Federico Valverde had to go to hospital for treatment following a fight with midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni, with those incidents serving as glaring evidence of Alvaro Arbeloa’s lack of authority.
Mourinho is a coach who has never had any problem with authority, and his most important immediate task when the squad reconvenes for the start of next season will be to make sure the dressing room is united behind him.
Address the Vinicius concern
Mourinho may seem a curious choice by Madrid given the criticism the Portuguese received for his remarks after Los Blancos star Vinicius Junior claimed he was racially abused by Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni.
Vinicius, having given Madrid a 1-0 lead, left the field on February 17 at Estadio da Luz after reporting the alleged racist remarks to the referee, leading the game to be temporarily stopped.
Mourinho responded by suggesting Vinicius’ celebration of his goal had caused the incident. Prestianni was last month handed a six-match ban by UEFA for homophobic comments, with that suspension extended globally by FIFA.
It has been reported that Vinicius does not see Mourinho’s arrival as a problem. But, with club president Florentino Perez conceding recently that talks over an extension to the Brazilian’s contract, which expires at the end of next season, are stalled, it is crucial that Mourinho ensures his relationship with Vinicius is a harmonious one and that he gets the 25-year-old into a place where he is ready to come to terms on a deal.
Rescue the Mbappe situation
Kylian Mbappe has scored 84 goals for Madrid since his move from Paris Saint-Germain, and yet the transfer is at risk of turning into a nightmare for him and the club.
A petition calling for Mbappe to be sold surpassed 70 million signatures, while his conduct before the Clasico has reportedly caused discontent within the club. Mbappe recovered from injury a day before the game but is claimed to have pulled out of training with discomfort after being placed in a group for planned substitutes.
In addition, a holiday Mbappe took to Italy with his girlfriend after sustaining his injury against Real Betis is said to gone down poorly inside the club.
Mbappe raised eyebrows with his comments after featuring as a substitute against Oviedo on Thursday.
“I’m doing great, 100 per cent,” Mbappe said when asked whether he was fit to start.
“I didn’t play because the coach told me that, for him, I’m the fourth striker of the team, behind Mastantuono, Vini, and Gonzalo. I accept that. I can’t be mad at him.”
Arbeloa denied telling Mbappe he was fourth choice and subsequently started him against Sevilla. However, it is clear that all is not well between Madrid and Mbappe.
Yet if Madrid are to challenge Barca in LaLiga and contend to reclaim the Champions League crown, they will need Mbappe’s phenomenal goalscoring abilities. As such, rescuing the situation and getting Mbappe on his side is likely to be extremely high on Mourinho’s to-do list.
Find an attacking setup that works
Making sure both Vinicius and Mbappe are happy goes hand in hand with arguably Mourinho’s biggest on-field problem.
Madrid have persisted with pairing Vinicius and Mbappe up front, with Carlo Ancelotti, Xabi Alonso and Arbeloa all attempting to make that combination work.
Though they have plundered 63 goals between them in all competitions this term, the jury is still out on whether it’s a combination with which they should persist.
Indeed, questions over Madrid’s fluency with that duo up top remain, and the fact that they have scored 21 fewer goals than Barcelona in LaLiga this season speaks to an attack that is not firing on all cylinders despite the superstars at Madrid’s disposal.
Unafraid to worry about damaging the egos of his players, it is up to Mourinho to decide whether to continue with the Vinicius-Mbappe combination, or switch to a system that might give them a better shot of keeping pace with Barcelona.
Make Madrid harder to beat
While Mourinho’s time with Benfica is set to end without a trophy, he did succeed in guiding them to an unbeaten season in the Primeira Liga.
That is an easier task in Portugal than it is in Spain, but Benfica’s impressive achievement is reflective of what has typically been one of his strengths, making his teams hard to beat.
By their standards, Madrid have not been difficult to beat at all this season.
Outside of the Clasico loss to Barcelona and a 5-2 derby defeat to Atletico Madrid, Los Blancos have also been beaten by Celta Vigo, Osasuna, Getafe and Mallorca in the league, while they were stunned by second-tier Albacete in the Copa del Rey.
In the league, Madrid have dropped points in 11 games this season, compared to six for Barcelona, with that disparity deciding the title race and condemning the most successful club in European football to a season without silverware.
A Champions League campaign that ended with a frenetic and thrilling quarter-final exit to Bayern Munich saw Madrid forced to contest a play-off round by a dramatic 4-2 loss to Mourinho’s Benfica on the final night of the league phase.
The elite European teams have little reason to fear Madrid, while smaller teams in LaLiga can clearly see vulnerability in a side that has come to be defined by discord. A team as talented as Madrid should have more of a fear factor, and Mourinho must restore it if he is to be successful in his second spell.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: 101greatgoals.com
