"I thought it was difficult to imagine Mourinho returning," Miguel Angel Nadal said, "but today I see him as one of the serious candidates." Coming from a former Barcelona and Spain defender, that's not a throwaway line.
Nadal made the comments to BetBrothers.es, and the logic behind them is more grounded than the usual Mourinho-to-Madrid speculation. His case isn't built on sentiment. It's built on what he sees as a Real Madrid side that has been underperforming relative to its talent — a squad that has been "let down in many games" where it looked capable of doing more.
Why this keeps coming up
Mourinho's first spell at the Bernabéu was chaotic, confrontational, and won a league title. It was also exactly the kind of reign that sticks in the memory of a club that values presence almost as much as silverware. Nadal's point is that Madrid don't just need a tactician — they need a coach with the authority to extract maximum output from a group of elite players who, right now, aren't consistently delivering it.
"There aren't many coaches who could get the whole squad in the right condition to demand the maximum," he said. That's Nadal's argument for Mourinho in a sentence.
At 62, Mourinho is not the same coach who antagonized the Bernabéu dressing room in 2013. Whether that's an asset or a liability depends on what Madrid actually want. But the idea that he's simply too toxic to consider has quietly faded — he's been rehabilitated enough through his Roma stint and the general passage of time that serious people are saying his name seriously again.
Simeone stays put — for now
Nadal also pushed back on any notion of Diego Simeone heading to Chelsea, describing his bond with Atlético as "special and unique." Italy, Nadal suggested, would always have felt more plausible than England as a next destination.
As for the Champions League, Nadal was direct: Atlético have a chance, but Bayern Munich and PSG are the stronger sides. Simeone's team faces Arsenal on Wednesday in the first leg of the semifinal — a tie that will tell a lot about whether Atlético can sustain another deep run or whether the squad depth is finally catching up with them. Arsenal's odds to advance will harden if Atlético show any of the fragility Nadal is hinting at.
Mourinho to Madrid remains unconfirmed speculation. But when former Barcelona players are calling it a serious option, it's not nothing.
