You can just imagine what was going on inside the head of Real Madrid president Florentino Perez when Benfica goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin scored that last-gasp goal to send them through to the Champions League play-offs.
The goal itself was relatively academic from a Real Madrid perspective. It confirmed their fate in the Champions League play-off round, but the clock was ticking, and it didn’t look as though their nine men were going to get the necessary equaliser.
Jose Mourinho’s Benfica sneaking through does set up the distinct possibility of a rematch in the play-off round. A 50% chance, in fact.
The other outcome is a trip to the Arctic Circle to face giant-killers Bodo/Glimt. Neither scenario is ideal for Alvaro Arbeloa’s ailing Madrid, particularly when title rivals Barcelona will get much-needed rest.
Arbeloa has a strong relationship with the president, but given this setback and their humiliating Copa del Rey exit to second-tier Albacete, we’d be amazed if he’s seriously considered for the job permanently beyond May.
Reports out of Spain suggest that Perez had his doubts about Xabi Alonso from the off.
Well-connected journalist Diego Torres suggested he wasn’t enamoured with Bayer Leverkusen’s defeat to Atalanta in the 2024 Europa League final, just days after he originally signed a pre-contract agreement with the club.
Tensions were further exacerbated when Alonso didn’t sufficiently talk up FIFA’s flagship expanded Club World Cup in the summer.
He’d have rather come in afterwards and started working with the players in a proper pre-season. The new manager’s request for midfield reinforcements fell on deaf ears.
Given that, you wonder if Perez might’ve had a little word in Mourinho’s ear when he departed Fenerbahce in late August. Hang fire, the time will come.
Sure enough, it did. Alonso was finally dismissed following Los Blancos’ Spanish Super Cup defeat to Barcelona earlier this month.
But the writing had been on the wall ever since Vinicius Junior’s flagrant display of insubordination in October’s Clasico.
The Brazilian apologised, but never to the head coach, who never received any public backing from the club hierarchy.
Unfortunately for Real Madrid’s president, Mourinho – never one to rest on his laurels – threw himself straight into a fresh challenge, joining Benfica – the first club he coached a quarter of a century ago, and the side that beat his Fenerbahce to Champions League qualification.
“I’d like to say that President Florentino sent me a message saying, ‘I’m very happy that you’ve returned to a club of your calibre,’ and to hear this from the president of Real Madrid himself,” Mourinho revealed when he was unveiled as the manager in September.
Mourinho evidently shares that opinion about his true level.
“I made a mistake going to Fenerbahce; it wasn’t my cultural level, it wasn’t my football level, it wasn’t my level,” he continued.
“Obviously, I gave everything until the last day, but coaching Benfica is returning to my level, and my level is coaching one of the biggest clubs in the world.”
Always one for flattery, Mourinho is right about Benfica in terms of their historic pedigree. Portugal’s biggest, most successful club.
The home of Eusebio. A club that contested five European Cup finals in the 1960s, winning two in a row after Real Madrid’s early years of dominance.
But in 2026? Benfica have won one title in the last six years. They’re miles off it this season. They’ve made it to just three quarter-finals, and never beyond, in the modern Champions League era.
Benfica might carry the name and prestige, but this job – in its current guise – feels like a continuation of the malaise in the latter half of Mourinho’s career.
Ed Woodward era Manchester United. Tottenham. Roma. Fenerbahce. Big clubs, big expectations, but diminishing returns without any of them really in a position to compete with Europe’s genuine elite.
His famous ‘football heritage’ rant in 2018 might have been motivated entirely by self-preservation, but was he wrong?
Look at the before and after of every job after Chelsea. Calling a second-place finish with Manchester United one of his greatest achievements might not be as mad as it first sounded.
There’s a prevailing narrative that Mourinho is a busted flush. Yesterday’s man. His outmoded tactics have no place in the modern game. But have you watched the Premier League in 2025-26? Is that really true?
Mourinho’s greatest folly over the past 10 years might just be making a series of poor career choices. Taking on a series of clubs in no position to compete for the trophies he made his name lifting.
With that sense of damaged goods, we can’t imagine a top Premier League club going near him again. Certainly not Arsenal, Liverpool or Manchester City. The PSG ship has surely sailed.
Those Madrid whispers continue. Perez’s fondness for Mourinho is well-established. Seemingly, he’s the only old-school sergeant major type Madrid’s president respects enough to give free rein on an ego-filled Galactico dressing room.
The biggest job of all might well be his only route back to the top. Look at Carlo Ancelotti, who was managing Everton – how weird does that feel now? – before he returned to deliver another couple of European Cups.
It’s just a question of timing. But the stars might just be aligning for Mourinho to have one last shot at the big time this summer.
The parallels with 2010 Madrid are irresistible; an underperforming team full of superstars, left eating Barcelona’s dust, hungry to get back on top. There’s an argument that he hasn’t worked with a player of Kylian Mbappe’s calibre since prime Cristiano Ronaldo.
Can Mourinho still do it at the elite level? We’d love a definitive answer to that question, and it would be anything but boring to find out.
By Nestor Watach
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