Jose Mourinho under fire: He's just a 'screenwriter for Real Madrid TV!'

21 Sept 2026 21:02 BST | 5 min read

Jose Mourinho, Real Madrid, 2026/27 — © IMAGO

Tom Weber | Writer

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Jose Mourinho's triumphant return to Real Madrid is already turning sour, and it is a surprise to absolutely no one.

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They say never go back to an ex, particularly a toxic one, yet Real Madrid went against the grain this summer and re-hired the combustible Portuguese after two seasons without major silverware.

Last year, president Florentino Perez attempted to modernise Real Madrid by appointing Xabi Alonso in a bid to raise standards at the club and keep up with Barcelona, who have been revitalised under Hansi Flick.

However, Alonso's modern methods failed to strike a chord with Real Madrid's squad, and he was eventually sacked after just a few months when a clique led by Vinicius Jr rebelled against him.

Instead of sticking to the plan of lifting Real Madrid into the 2020s, Perez backpedalled this summer and went to the other extreme by looking to the past: he brought back the great disciplinarian Mourinho in the belief that he could fix the club's culture.

Same old Mourinho

The appointment of the 63-year-old raised eyebrows, not just because of his previous stint at the club - when he burned many bridges - but also because he hasn't had any tangible, sustained success in about a decade.

Indeed, there was a widespread belief that Mourinho was finished at the highest level of European football. The wholesale changes in the tactical landscape of elite football in recent years have simply left the veteran behind.

Increasingly, it looks as though his detractors were correct. In typical Mourinho fashion, Real Madrid's performances have been mostly dire this season, even when results have gone their way. In fact, they arguably played their best game in a loss to Real Betis earlier this month.

Despite high-scoring wins over the likes of Real Sociedad, Malaga and Rayo Vallecano, Real Madrid have been far from convincing. The lack of a midfield metronome still plagues the club two years on from Toni Kroos' retirement.

On Sunday, Los Blancos put in a lacklustre performance in the Derbi Madrileno and deservedly lost 2-1. Granted, Atletico Madrid could - and perhaps should - have received two red cards, but that should not obfuscate a really poor display from Real Madrid.

After the game, Mourinho was up to his old tricks, pointing the finger at referee Ortiz Arias - whose appointment he had already questioned beforehand - and he even brought printouts of the non-red card incidents.

However, his antics can't paper over the fact that Real Madrid looks miles off Barcelona, and according to Spanish pundit Paco Gonzalez, the evidence is overwhelming at this point: Mourinho can't cut it at the top of the game anymore.

Speaking on Tiempo de Juego, he said: "The old Mourinho has reappeared, I don't know how many years [after his first stint]: 'The referee is to blame for the defeat.'"

"He's right about the potential cards in the first half, but he said everything about Ortiz Arias' appointment was strange," Gonzalez added before quipping that Los Blancos had "hired a screenwriter for Real Madrid TV."

Even before the game kicked off, Mourinho seemed to lay the groundwork for the narrative that the referee would be to blame for the outcome of the match if Real Madrid were to lose.

In doing so, he was faithfully towing the party line. After the defeat, Real Madrid published their official match report with the remarkable headline: "A terrible refereeing performance decides the derby."

Los Blancos, Gonzalez concluded, have gone backwards: "Real Madrid needed a modern manager, and they brought in a coach from 15 years ago. Mourinho didn't come here to talk about football or to make us play football, that's a different story."