Two days out from the first competitive match of José Mourinho’s second spell, the interesting question is no longer who is in the Real Madrid squad. It is who already knows they are in the team. According to Javi Herráez on El Larguero, as reported by Madrid Universal, six players do: Thibaut Courtois, Marc Cucurella, Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior, Yan Diomande and Jude Bellingham are the men the coach regards as fixed starters. Everyone else is still auditioning.
That is the first hard read anyone has had on the Real Madrid starting XI under Mourinho, and it is worth more than any pre-season team sheet. It tells you where the manager thinks his side is settled — goalkeeper, left-back and the whole of the front line — and, by omission, exactly where he is still arguing with himself: the centre of defence, right-back, and the two deeper midfield roles. Madrid open at Espanyol on Saturday with five shirts genuinely up for grabs.
The six locked into Mourinho’s starting XI
Courtois, as the report frames it, remains the undisputed first choice in goal. Cucurella, signed from Chelsea earlier this summer, walks into the team at left-back on reputation as much as pre-season form. The front four, per Madrid Universal, more or less pick themselves — particularly with Rodrygo unavailable, the same report saying the Brazilian is still recovering from a knee ligament injury.
The name that jumps off the list is Diomande. Real Madrid’s biggest outlay of the window, a reported €140m arrival from RB Leipzig, is already viewed as untouchable rather than as a project to be eased in — which, in a forward line containing Mbappé, Vinícius and Bellingham, is a statement in itself. It also fits the pattern of a coach who has spent pre-season telling everyone that nothing in this squad is inherited.
Right-back is the call everyone is waiting on
The most interesting vacancy is the one Madrid spent money on twice. According to Mario Cortegana of The Athletic, via Madrid Universal, Denzel Dumfries has a strong chance of starting at Espanyol, despite arriving primarily to compete with Trent Alexander-Arnold. The Netherlands international came in during July when Madrid activated a reported €20m release clause at Inter, bringing two Champions League finals’ worth of experience with him.
The nuance in the same report is that Mourinho is understood to prefer Alexander-Arnold’s technical profile — the passing range, the build-up from deep — but has not settled on a first-choice right-back. Dumfries offers something blunter and more physical: athleticism, defensive intensity, a runner who attacks the box. Read that as horses for courses rather than a hierarchy, and the battle on the right side of the defence looks like a season-long argument rather than a decision made this week.
Centre-back and the pivot: genuinely open
In the middle of the back four, Dean Huijsen, Ibrahima Konaté and Antonio Rüdiger are all competing for two places — a shift we tracked when Rüdiger began pre-season losing his place — with Éder Militão still working his way back to fitness behind them.
Midfield is more open still. Federico Valverde, Bernardo Silva and Aurélien Tchouaméni are the candidates for the two deeper roles, with Eduardo Camavinga pushing for minutes. Given that Valverde’s position has been debated all summer and that Camavinga has been used out of position during the warm-up games, the double pivot at Cornellà may be the most revealing selection of the night.
Six certainties, then, and five conversations. It is a reasonable place for a manager to be 48 hours before kick-off, and a better one than the club managed a year ago. The XI that starts at Espanyol on Saturday will not be the XI that finishes the season — Mourinho has been at pains to say as much — but it will tell Madridistas which of the summer’s arguments the coach has already resolved in his own head.
