Real Madrid spent the transfer window wrestling with one question: did they need a new midfielder? The club themselves admitted as much when they explored a move for Rodri. That deal collapsed, and Madrid chose to make do with what they had alongside Bernardo Silva, whose role with the Whites has drifted closer to a midfielder than the playmaker he usually was at City.
According to Spanish newspaper "AS", the competitive season has kicked off and the same problems have surfaced all over again. Nowhere was this clearer than against Inter, where Madrid could barely control the flow of play at any point. Valverde explained afterwards that Mourinho had been urging his players to keep the ball and slow the tempo, yet it never happened.
The crisis stretches back to last season, when Arbeloa patched it up thanks to an unexpected name who forced his way into the starting line-up. Thiago Pitarch, then still at Castilla, began featuring regularly for the first team. He racked up more than 800 minutes, starting both legs against City in the Champions League round of 16 and the first leg of the quarter-final against Bayern.
His role this season has been murky. A departure was on the table, but an injury at the start of pre-season shut down any chance of leaving, so Pitarch stayed with the first team despite being registered with the reserves for lack of squad places. He still holds first-team status and a new contract that confirms it. That leaves him with his toughest task of all: actually playing.
Space is hard to come by. Mourinho leans on a 4-2-3-1 that pins Pitarch to the double pivot, where he battles Valverde, Tchouaméni, Camavinga and Bernardo Silva. On paper, Thiago is fifth in line among five men. He counts on the quality he flashed last season and a fearlessness that meant the weight of the Madrid shirt never fazed him.
Mourinho has shown little interest in Thiago of late because of that injury, yet he knows exactly what the youngster delivered last season and what he can offer soon. As the coach put it bluntly: "He is not a player to feature in the Castilla category, but rather a first-team player and I like him a lot. He has qualities that I like very much, and when he is fully fit he will be part of the group, and then there will be minutes waiting for him to play, as he has very high quality."
Mourinho wants Pitarch to sharpen up physically to compete the way the Portuguese demands, especially defensively, and he told him so directly: "The only thing I tell him is that his leg muscles are like mine, and he needs to add two kilograms there through work."
So Thiago works on, robbed of a pre-season and fighting the circumstances stacked against him: his fitness, fierce competition and a coach who doesn't yet know him fully, all in a bid to get his 2026-2027 season going.
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