Mourinho's Madrid Return Begins Against Espanyol in La Liga Opener

Sixteen years after his first departure, José Mourinho returns to Real Madrid carrying the weight of institutional memory and the burden of a club that has forgotten how to win consistently. His mandate is familiar — dethrone Barcelona, restore discipline, and solve the riddle of how to make three generational talents coexist without leaving the defense exposed. The journey begins quietly, on a Saturday night in Barcelona against Espanyol, but the larger reckoning is already underway. History does not simply repeat itself, but it does, as Mourinho himself might say, demand to be learned from.