A historic turnaround: Mourinho rids himself of the Real Madrid nightmare
An unprecedented surge
Jose Mourinho is determined to keep his Real Madrid players fit and available, after his side reached mid-October without a single new injury, a feat the club have not managed in ten years, aside from players carrying problems over from last season.
According to Spanish newspaper "AS", availability sits near the top of Mourinho's priority list this season. He made the point at Friday's pre-match press conference before the clash with Villarreal, steering talk away from the row over Kylian Mbappe riding a bicycle and onto the physical condition of his players.
The Portuguese said: "Do you want a story? I'm touching wood, because football remains football, but do you want a story? I'll tell it to you: this is the first time in the last ten years that Real Madrid has reached mid-October without a single injured player."
Mourinho left three players out of those remarks, all still nursing injuries from last season: Ferland Mendy, Eder Militao and Rodrygo. Raul Asencio also missed the cut, having eventually undergone surgery on a fracture in his shin after months of discomfort.
The coach had tackled the subject before the international break too, speaking ahead of the Elche match about the work going on behind the scenes to cut injuries.
Mourinho said: "We work here within a comprehensive, natural and professional plan, based on very good cooperation between everyone. And when I say everyone, I mean the players, who are the most important, and the technical staff, which includes qualified people in the fields of sports science, prevention, muscle strengthening and individual training, as well as monitoring the small indicators that may appear before problems occur, and also the medical staff, who are heavily involved in this comprehensive system through a great deal of unseen work."
Beyond those four, the remaining 22 members of the squad were all fully fit as competitions resumed. Direct comparisons with previous seasons are tricky this year, because the fixture calendar has shifted thanks to the new long international break.
The yardstick, then, is the final round of La Liga before the October break, by which point the opening two rounds of the Champions League had already been played.
Look back over the past decade and the picture is grim: a run of problems and injuries, with players missing as many as 60 matches in a single season.
2026-2027 season
Rodrygo, Ferland Mendy and Eder Militao have yet to play a minute this season, still battling injuries from the last campaign. The Brazilian defender is expected back after the November international break, when Real Madrid host three straight games at the Santiago Bernabeu against Celta Vigo, PSV Eindhoven and Alaves.
Thiago and Endrick also sat out the opening matches with minor knocks picked up in pre-season, while Aurelien Tchouameni waited until the fifth game, the team's Champions League opener, to feature, after physical problems that had dogged him since the World Cup.
Surgery awaited Raul Asencio, who went under the knife to treat a stress fracture in his right leg that had been troubling him for months. Not a single player, then, has missed a match through an injury picked up after the season began.
The only names missing from Mourinho's available squad for the restart are academy player Raul Asencio, Rodrygo, Ferland Mendy and Eder Militao, every one of them carrying an injury from last season.
2025-2026 season
Ferland Mendy, Endrick and Jude Bellingham all missed the start. The Frenchman had torn the tendon close to the rectus femoris muscle in his right thigh, an injury that sidelined him for six months.
The Brazilian striker, meanwhile, spent four months out with a hamstring injury, while Bellingham opted for shoulder surgery after the Club World Cup to rid himself of pain that had lingered since dislocating the joint around two years earlier.
It was a familiar story. Eduardo Camavinga suffered a sprain that cost him a month, and Antonio Rudiger, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dani Carvajal all picked up muscle injuries. Excluding the three who started the season injured, the absences added up to 18 matches across the first ten fixtures.
In the final match before the October break, against Villarreal, Xabi Alonso went without Carvajal, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Rudiger, all injured that season, while Mendy remained out with his problem from the previous campaign.
After the break, Dean Huijsen and Dani Ceballos joined the list, each sidelined for two matches by minor muscle trouble.
2024-2025 season
Eduardo Camavinga went down in the last training session before the campaign kicked off, spraining the medial collateral ligament of his left knee the day before the UEFA Super Cup match.
Then the injuries came thick and fast. Jude Bellingham, Jesus Vallejo, Dani Ceballos, Aurelien Tchouameni, Brahim Diaz, Dani Carvajal, Kylian Mbappe and Thibaut Courtois all passed through the medical clinic.
Together they missed 32 matches across the team's first ten official fixtures. Mendy, Militao and Rodrygo had physical niggles of their own, but none cost them a game.
Carlo Ancelotti reached the last match before the break, against Villarreal, without Courtois, David Alaba and Brahim Diaz. That game then saw Carvajal suffer a serious injury to his right knee in a mistimed challenge with Yeremy Pino.
2023-2024 season
Dani Ceballos went down on the fourth day of pre-season, during training at Valdebebas, while Arda Guler and Ferland Mendy had to cut short the team's tour of the United States.
Each spent around two months out, and the opening week brought a brutal run of injuries. Two days before La Liga began, Thibaut Courtois tore the anterior cruciate ligament of his left knee. The same injury then struck Eder Militao the moment the second half of the opening match at San Mames got under way.
Just like that, Ancelotti lost two cornerstones of his defence until the spring. Vinicius Junior missed four matches with an injury to the biceps femoris of his right thigh, and Carvajal sat out two with pain in his right leg.
Arda Guler, too, suffered a fresh setback with his injury, then a second one later on, while David Alaba picked up trouble in the adductor muscles of his right thigh. The absences mounted to 52 matches across the first 11 fixtures. Ancelotti played the last match before the break without Courtois, Militao, Alaba and Arda Guler. Alaba returned after the international break, with Ceballos joining the casualty list.
2022-2023 season
A minor ankle sprain disrupted Dani Carvajal's pre-season for six days, Alvaro Odriozola missed the Super Cup with calf pain, and Rodrygo sat out the first two rounds of La Liga with a strain in his right thigh.
Add in the minor physical problems suffered by Carvajal, Militao, Jesus Vallejo, Nacho Fernandez, Toni Kroos, Lucas Vazquez and Karim Benzema, and the absences reached 21 matches across the first nine official fixtures.
That season also featured a long international break at a similar point, before the World Cup in Qatar. Thibaut Courtois, Luka Modric and Lucas Vazquez all sat out the first match back, which pitted Real Madrid against Osasuna.
2021-2022 season
A huge wave of injuries defined the season. The coronavirus pandemic even disrupted the pre-season of Karim Benzema, David Alaba and Alvaro Odriozola, though it never cost them a match.
Before kick-off, Toni Kroos suffered a pubic injury that kept him out for two months, while Dani Ceballos tore a ligament and spent more than four months on the sidelines.
Come the last match before the October break, Ancelotti had to do without Marcelo, Ferland Mendy, Ceballos, Isco, Marco Asensio, Gareth Bale and Mariano Diaz.
Andriy Lunin, David Alaba, Luka Modric and Luka Jovic were all missing at various points across roughly the first month and a half. In all, injuries wiped out 60 matches over ten fixtures.
2020-2021 season
Played out during the pandemic, the season opened with an international break, so Real Madrid managed only four matches before the second one. Even over that short stretch, injuries to Dani Carvajal, Eder Militao, Marcelo, Odriozola, Toni Kroos, Isco, Eden Hazard, Marco Asensio and Lucas Vazquez accounted for 16 missed matches.
Mariano Diaz was also sidelined after tonsil surgery left him unavailable. Zinedine Zidane had to juggle six absences in the match before the break and four in the one after it. 2019-2020 season Marco Asensio suffered the most serious injury of pre-season, tearing his anterior cruciate ligament and external meniscus in a friendly against Arsenal.
In the last match before the break, Zidane went without Thibaut Courtois, Nacho Fernandez, Ferland Mendy, Marcelo and Asensio himself.
Fede Valverde, Luka Modric, Isco, James Rodriguez, Eden Hazard, Rodrygo, Brahim Diaz and Mariano Diaz also passed through the medical clinic across the first ten official matches.
All told, injuries cost 45 matches over ten fixtures.
2018-2019 season
Marcelo, Dani Carvajal and Isco all sat out the defeat to Alaves, with Julen Lopetegui's Real Madrid in the middle of a sharp slump.
The Basque coach also had to manage without Jesus Vallejo for several games early on. Even so, it ranked among the recent seasons least hit by early injuries, with the absences totalling just 12 matches across the first 11 fixtures.
2027-2018 season
Keylor Navas, Dani Carvajal, Theo Hernandez, Marcelo, Mateo Kovacic, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema all missed the win over Espanyol, the match before the second international break.
Unlike this season, Zinedine Zidane's side were ravaged early on, with the absences reaching 32 matches across the first ten fixtures.
Marco Asensio, Toni Kroos and Raphael Varane also went down in the opening weeks. 2016-2017 season Marcelo, Casemiro and Luka Modric were absent from the 1-1 draw against Eibar at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Before that, Keylor Navas, Pepe, Marcelo, Isco, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema had each sat out one match or more, pushing the total to 23 absences across the first ten official fixtures.
