Mourinho returns to Real Madrid with unfinished business: the Champions League that eluded him

There are nights when the scoreline matters less than who's sitting in the dugout. This Tuesday at the Santiago Bernabéu, Real Madrid opens its Champions League campaign hosting Inter Milan, but the spotlight isn't only on the home side: Jose Mourinho is back on that bench, years after his first spell at the club, and this time with one very specific goal in mind.

The Portuguese coach managed Madrid between 2010 and 2013. In those three years he brought home a league title and a Copa del Rey, but the Champions League eluded him. That's precisely the trophy the club has since collected as if it were part of its DNA: since Mourinho left, Madrid has won the competition six more times, reaching the 15 Champions League titles now on display in its trophy case, a record no one else in the tournament's history comes close to matching.

If he now wins the title with Madrid, Mourinho would join Pep Guardiola, Luis Enrique, Zinedine Zidane and Bob Paisley in the select group of coaches who have won the Champions League three times. He already lifted it with Porto in 2004 and with Inter itself in 2010, the very same opponent he faces this time. But the coach doesn't want this read as revenge or as unfinished business from his previous stint at the club.

"I finished my job here in 2013. We won what we won, and we lost what we lost. We gave everything, but it's a closed chapter. This has nothing to do with the past, absolutely nothing. These are two different moments in Real Madrid's history."Jose Mourinho

Mourinho went further in explaining why he draws so little comparison between that Madrid team and the current one. In 2010, he recalled, the club hadn't reached a quarterfinal in years, let alone a semifinal. The team he inherits now is completely different: one that's been winning in Europe for a decade almost as a matter of habit.

"Now this is a Real Madrid that has won over the last ten years. These are two different moments, but that doesn't change how I think. If you ask me whether winning the Champions League with Real Madrid excites me, obviously it does, but that's completely separate from any context of not having done it before."Jose Mourinho

He wrapped up with a line that makes clear where he intends to steer the narrative all season: he wants to win, and there's no time to dwell on a past that was beautiful but is already closed.

The matchup against Inter carries its own extra edge, too, given it's the club with which Mourinho won his second Champions League title. That same Tuesday, in another matchday fixture, Manchester City visits Porto, another clash with a flavor of recent European history.