Real Madrid would be MAD to reappoint Jose Mourinho! Potential Bernabeu return is damning indictment of Florentino Perez's desperation

Perez clearly feels that there are parallels between now and 2010 - and there are a couple, in fairness. Madrid are once again set to end a second consecutive season without a major trophy - utterly unacceptable at the Bernabeu - and have been eclipsed by a brilliant Barcelona team led by a little, left-footed forward.

However, Mourinho is no longer the man with the Midas touch. He continues to court controversy, but now without collecting trophies. He hasn't won a league title for 11 years, and his last piece of silverware of any variety was the 2022 Conference League - which is rather indicative of the two-time Champions League winner's current level.

Perez will doubtless argue that Mourinho is precisely the kind of coach that Madrid need, a charismatic character capable of commanding the respect of a squad full of superstars and, for all the doubts about his archaic footballing philosophy, Kylian Mbappe & Co. could clearly do with a strong leader on the sidelines. As Sergio Ramos once said, "At Real, managing the dressing room is more important than the coach’s tactical knowledge."

However, Mourinho is nothing like Madrid's past two Champions League-winning coaches: Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane. He's far more aggressive and confrontational - and his incessant intensity ultimately brought a premature end to his first spell at the Bernabeu.

Mourinho often likes to claim - unprompted - that he's one of the few coaches in Madrid's history to have left on his own terms, and it's a story that's always been supported by Perez.

"Nobody's been sacked, it's a mutual agreement," Perez insisted back in 2013. "We've decided to bring our relationship to an end." But it was hardly an amicable break-up. Less than a year after signing a contract extension until 2016, Mourinho's position had become untenable.

In January 2013, Perez took the unprecedented step of calling a press conference to deny a MARCA report that a number of senior players, including club legends Iker Casillas and Ramos, had threatened to quit the club unless Mourinho was dismissed. However, it was clear long before his departure was finally confirmed four months later that the coach had lost the dressing room.

Basically, the methods with which Mourinho had enjoyed such success at Porto, Chelsea and Inter proved his undoing at Madrid. His beloved 'siege mentality' only worked for so long. The very same climate of constant distrust and disrespect that Mourinho had created around the club eventually - and arguably inevitably - permeated the squad, resulting in the players turning on the coach.

Casillas kept quiet about being relegated to the bench during the 2012-13 season, but Pepe went public with his dissatisfaction with the way in which the goalkeeper was treated by his compatriot. Mourinho's response was to insinuate that Pepe was simply bitter about the fact that his own place in the team had been taken by a teenage Raphael Varane.

Ramos, meanwhile, reportedly mocked Mourinho's football skills behind the scenes before making a very pointed comment about Ancelotti when the former Italy midfielder took over in June 2013: "You can tell he was a top player."

It was also Ramos who challenged the idea pushed by both Mourinho and Perez that the Portuguese laid the foundations for Madrid's subsequent success in the Champions League. According to Mourinho, Perez even begged him to stay at Madrid in 2013. "Don't leave now," the Blancos president allegedly said. "You've done the hard part and the good part is yet to come."

Ramos, though, refused to give Mourinho any credit for Madrid's four Champions League triumphs between 2014 and 2018. "I don't think he had anything to do with it," the defender said. "On the contrary, in fact..."

The insinuation that Mourinho may actually have been holding Madrid back was probably overegging it - but it's clear that the squad benefited enormously from the arrival of a calming and unifying force like Ancelotti.

It's also difficult to see how Mourinho's return would restore anything resembling stability, after a season of upheaval in which Xabi Alonso was ruthlessly replaced by rookie coach Alvaro Arbeloa just over six months into what was meant to be a long-term project under the former Bayer Leverkusen boss - before all hell broke loose in the dressing room last week.

Adding Mourinho into the mix would hardly lower the tension at the club. On the contrary, it would be akin to pouring petrol on a dumpster fire - which is why Casillas has already admitted he is dead against Perez's most ill-fated of ideas.

Furthermore, while Mbappe may have liked an Instagram post touting Mourinho as Madrid's next manager, one imagines that Vincius Jr is less enamoured with the idea of being coached by a man that effectively accused him of inciting the shameful abuse he was subjected to in Lisbon earlier this season that actually forced a suspension of play in Madrid's Champions League play-off clash with Mourinho's Benfica.

Of course, supporters of 'The Special One' are already arguing that he's the "ideal" disciplinarian to restore order at Real, but these days he does little else but create chaos by constantly complaining about referees - although, in fairness, fellow conspiracy theorist Perez may well see that as a plus rather than a negative.

So, while it's been reported that the Portuguese's potential return does not have the backing of the entire Madrid board, that doesn't mean it won't happen. Perez, as he made clear in an extraordinary press conference on Tuesday, still calls the shots at the Bernabeu - and his long-standing belief that the players require a team leader rather than tactician will have only been emboldened by Jose Angel Sanchez's failed Alonso experiment.

However, the mere fact that Mourinho is still top of his wish-list is a damning indictment of Perez's desperation - and disturbing lack of ideas. As so thrillingly illustrated by Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich’s Champions League semi-final first-leg clash at Parc des Princes, the game has moved on from Mourinho.

Evidently, Perez has not, meaning Madrid really are in big trouble this time, because while re-hiring Mourinho back in 2015 would have been a dreadful decision, it'd be even worse now.