Real Madrid Rakes In $1 Billion But Bets on Mourinho and Diomande Without Knowing How the Pieces Fit

There's a question hanging over the Santiago Bernabéu as the 2026-27 season gets underway: does Real Madrid actually know what it's doing? The richest club on the planet, the first in history to top 1 billion euros in revenue in a single season, has gone two years without lifting a major trophy. And this summer, instead of clearing up the doubts, the club only added to them.

Let's rewind a bit to understand the contrast. Two seasons ago, Madrid was a steamroller: 95 points in LaLiga, just one match lost, a fifteenth Champions League title after beating Borussia Dortmund 2-0 in the final. Vinicius Junior finished second in the Ballon d'Or voting, Bellingham third. On top of that, Kylian Mbappe arrived for free after running out his contract at PSG. It looked like the start of an empire. Instead, since the summer of 2024, Madrid hasn't won anything of note, hasn't made it past the Champions League quarterfinals, and isn't even the favorite in its own league anymore. That role belongs to Barcelona, which is on track for its third straight title.

Yan Diomande: a lot of money, not many certainties

The signing raising the most questions is Yan Diomande, who cost 125 million euros from RB Leipzig, the highest fee Madrid has ever paid for a player. His performance last season in the Bundesliga ranked among the best in Europe by xPVA (expected possession value added), a stat that's even more striking considering he's only 19 years old, while the rest of the names on that list were all over 24. The issue isn't talent, it's fit. Diomande has barely 34 starts in professional leagues, and his best output comes when attacking the box from the left, exactly the same lane already occupied by Vinicius and Mbappe, two players who, over the past two seasons, have never quite figured out how to share the field. If the club had planned to move Vini on, the signing made sense. With Vini staying, the pieces don't line up as cleanly.

Four veteran signings, one muddled message

The rest of the club's transfer business doesn't settle any doubts either: Marc Cucurella (28, $55 million from Chelsea), Denzel Dumfries (30, $20 million from Inter Milan), Ibrahima Konate (27, a free transfer from Liverpool), and Bernardo Silva (31, a free transfer from Manchester City). None of them has been consistent enough to guarantee an immediate upgrade, and most arrive on long contracts, running through 2030 or even 2032 in Cucurella's case, which complicates any quick exit if performance doesn't hold up. Given the age of these reinforcements, it's more likely their level drops at Madrid than rises.

Mourinho, a return to old habits

Then there's Jose Mourinho, who hasn't won a major title in more than a decade. His recent stops at Manchester United, Tottenham, Roma, Fenerbahce and Benfica produced more firings than trophies. At Benfica he finished unbeaten in the league but third overall, missing out on Champions League qualification. His hiring only makes sense in terms of star power, not recent results. He'd already criticized Bernardo Silva publicly barely a week after arriving.

What Mourinho represents seems to weigh as much as what he can actually bring to the team.Analysis from the technical staff consulted

Vinicius himself was a target of Mourinho's criticism years ago, after he suffered racist abuse from a Benfica player Mourinho was coaching at the time. Under Hansi Flick, Barcelona attacks fearlessly and rarely settles for a draw. Mourinho's last few teams, by contrast, drew 22% of their matches. These are opposite philosophies.

None of this guarantees failure: in what counted as Madrid's "down" year, the club still racked up 86 points and conceded the fewest goals in LaLiga. According to Transfermarkt, it still has the second most valuable squad in the world. There's no shortage of talent. What's missing is certainty about how the new pieces fit with the old ones, and about whether the coach the club picked is the right one to figure that out.