Jose Mourinho's Return to Real Madrid: Early Success and Upcoming Tests

Jose Mourinho’s second act at Real Madrid could hardly have opened better: three games, three wins, goals flowing, and a squad suddenly playing like it has known each other for years.

The Bernabeu has started to believe again. The football has been bold, front-foot, almost carefree at times, with the big names clicking in a way that had felt more theoretical than real in recent seasons.

Now comes the first real jolt of reality.

Two games in five days – away to Real Betis in La Liga, then Inter Milan at the Bernabeu in the Champions League – will start to reveal what lies beneath the early gloss of Mourinho’s return.

Betis away: where the cracks usually show

Madrid have built momentum quickly. The pressing has bite, the attacking patterns look rehearsed but not rigid, and there are early signs that the defensive line is finally moving as one rather than as four separate ideas.

Betis will not make this easy.

A trip to a technically gifted side, in a hostile stadium, is precisely the kind of fixture that has tripped Madrid up in the last couple of seasons. These are the nights that often decide whether you finish first or second in Spain – not the glamour clashes at the top, but the awkward away days where rhythm disappears and the game turns scrappy.

Playing away from home will test whether Mourinho’s team can keep that aggressive, high-tempo approach when the game stops suiting them. When the passes don’t quite land. When the crowd roars for every Betis tackle.

Mourinho has hammered home one message since walking back through the door: the team must function as a group. No passengers, no drifting stars. Betis away is exactly the type of game that exposes whether that idea is truly embedded or just a catchy soundbite from pre-season.

If Madrid really have changed, this is where it shows.

Inter at the Bernabeu: step up to elite level

If Betis are the warning shot, Inter are the full examination.

Madrid’s Champions League campaign opens against the Italian side, handing Mourinho an immediate benchmark against elite European opposition and a reunion, of sorts, with a club he knows intimately from his previous life on the touchline.

This time, the complications are in midfield.

Aurelien Tchouameni is out injured. Arda Guler, Eduardo Camavinga and Bernardo Silva are all suspended. That leaves a glaring hole in the centre of the pitch just as the level of opponent spikes sharply upward.

The situation could accelerate the rise of Sergio Martinez, who is in line to make his Real Madrid debut against Inter. Thrown into the biggest club competition in the world, at the Bernabeu, against a side coached by Mourinho’s former player Cristian Chivu – it is a brutal but potentially defining stage.

Mourinho may have to lean on youth, trust raw legs and fearless energy, and improvise solutions on the fly. Inter will not wait for Madrid to settle.

From honeymoon to hard truth

Right now, the mood around Real Madrid is as buoyant as it has been for years. The coach is back, the football looks sharp, and the stands feel united behind a project that, on the surface, is flying.

Pre-season under Mourinho was strong, and the early performances have carried that work onto the competitive stage. The structure looks clearer, the roles better defined, the intensity higher.

But honeymoons end. Seasons don’t care about narratives.

Betis away followed by Inter at home is a stretch that can expose weaknesses as quickly as it can confirm strengths. Fatigue, suspensions, injuries – they all converge here, right when the calendar hardens.

This could be the moment when small flaws start to show, when Mourinho is forced to adjust on the run rather than simply reinforce what already works. He will need to be ahead of the problems, not reacting to them.

By the end of next week, we will know a lot more. Is this Real Madrid truly built to last under Mourinho, or is the perfect start about to meet its first serious resistance?