Real Madrid finished August with a perfect record and a settled team. September will tell Jose Mourinho considerably more. LaLiga have now confirmed the dates and kick-off times for the rounds either side of the Champions League opener, and the Real Madrid September fixtures list is unforgiving: five matches in 20 days, three of them away, ending with a derby at the Metropolitano.
Per Mundo Deportivo, Los Blancos play four LaLiga games and one Champions League tie before the international break begins on 21 September. Two are at the Santiago Bernabeu. The other three take Madrid to Seville, Elche and the other side of their own city.
Real Madrid September fixtures in full
- Friday 4 September — Betis v Real Madrid, La Cartuja, 21:00 CEST (20:00 BST)
- Tuesday 8 September — Real Madrid v Inter, Santiago Bernabeu, 21:00 CEST (20:00 BST)
- Saturday 12 September — Real Madrid v Rayo Vallecano, Santiago Bernabeu, 21:00 CEST (20:00 BST)
- Tuesday 15 September — Elche v Real Madrid, Martinez Valero, 21:30 CEST (20:30 BST)
- Sunday 20 September — Atletico Madrid v Real Madrid, Metropolitano, 16:15 CEST (15:15 BST)
After that, nothing until the weekend of 10-11 October, when Villarreal visit the Bernabeu.
Betis first, and it is a Friday night
The month opens in Seville rather than at home. Madrid travel to La Cartuja on Friday 4 September for a 21:00 kick-off, the first of three away trips in a fortnight and a fixture that has produced very little comfort for visiting sides in recent seasons.
It arrives on the back of a flawless August. Madrid won 2-1 at Espanyol, beat Real Sociedad 4-1 on Mourinho’s first competitive night back at the Bernabeu, and put four past Malaga without reply. Nine points from nine, 10 goals scored, two conceded — the sort of start that raises the bar rather than lowering the pressure.
Inter at the Bernabeu, with three midfielders missing
Four days later comes the Champions League league-phase opener against Inter, a 21:00 kick-off on Tuesday 8 September that Mourinho will not need any help getting up for. He won a treble at the Italian club in 2010 before his first spell in Madrid, and Denzel Dumfries arrived at Valdebebas from Inter this summer.
Mourinho will do it a midfielder or three light. As we reported, Arda Guler, Eduardo Camavinga and Bernardo Silva are all suspended for the game, serving bans carried over from last season’s European campaign. Mundo Deportivo also report the ticket prices for the night: €295 at the most expensive end of the general sale in the lateral stands, €105 at the cheapest in the upper tiers, with general sale opening on Wednesday 2 September. Our guide to Madrid’s league-phase draw covers who follows Inter.
Rayo and Elche: the squad-rotation window
Matchday five brings Rayo Vallecano to the Bernabeu on Saturday 12 September at 21:00, and matchday six sends Madrid to the Martinez Valero to face Elche on Tuesday 15 September at 21:30 — a midweek round squeezed between a Champions League night and a derby.
This is where the rotation Mourinho has been trailing since pre-season stops being theoretical. Rodrygo (knee) and Ferland Mendy (thigh) remain long-term absentees, Eder Militao and Raul Asencio have been working towards September returns, and Aurelien Tchouameni’s comeback has deliberately been left without a date. Five games in 20 days with that treatment room is not a schedule you navigate with eleven players.
The derby, and Mourinho’s first return to the Metropolitano
The month closes with the biggest date on it. Atletico Madrid host Real Madrid in matchday seven on Sunday 20 September at 16:15, live on DAZN, per Mundo Deportivo.
It will be Mourinho’s first Madrid derby since he left the club in 2013 — and his first as a visiting manager at the Metropolitano, a stadium that did not exist during his first spell. The fixture has needed no extra ingredients in recent years. It has one anyway.
What September actually decides
Not the title, obviously. But a side that goes into the international break with 12 points from these four league games and a Champions League win over Inter will have banked something real, and captain Federico Valverde’s team will have done it while missing four or five senior players.
Four league fixtures, one derby, one European night, 20 days. August was the easy part.
Dates and kick-off times are as announced by LaLiga and reported by Mundo Deportivo, and remain subject to change. UK times are converted from CEST.
