In one of the biggest transformations the Royal club has seen in recent years, the Portuguese coach has rebuilt a physically tougher squad. Absences through muscular injury have become a rarity, where once they were an everyday fact of life at Valdebebas.
When Mourinho walked back into the Santiago Bernabéu, winning titles was only half the job. First he had to cure a chronic problem that had drained the team for seasons. More than once, Real Madrid were forced to call up kids from the academy despite carrying a squad of nearly 25 players, simply because recurring injuries had left them short of bodies.
Improving the players' fitness and dodging another injury-ravaged campaign sat at the very top of the Portuguese coach's list, and he has pulled it off so far in striking fashion. The numbers prove this was no fluke, according to Spanish newspaper "AS".
Leave aside the players already carrying physical problems into the season, and only one man has missed a game this term through a muscular injury: Fede Valverde, after the Clásico at the Camp Nou. Nobody else has suffered a muscular issue since. For this club, that is unheard of in years.
Rodrygo, Thiago, Militão, Mendy and Asensio have struggled for minutes, but all of them started the season already carrying those problems. Most were long-term cases. Others, like Thiago and Militão, eased back into training gradually without picking up any fresh setbacks.
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Rewind to this point last season to grasp the scale of the shift. Real Madrid lost 39 matches to injury among the first team, setting aside those hurt the previous season or over the summer window. Add those in and the figure climbs to 62 matches lost, catastrophic by any measure.
Rüdiger, Alaba, Huijsen, Trent, Carvajal, Tchouaméni, Ceballos and Mastantuono all picked up muscular problems in the opening months of last season. A world away from where Real Madrid sit today.
Credit for the turnaround belongs to the working methods of Mourinho and his staff. They manage every player's minutes and training load with precision, neither overcooking them nor letting their readiness slip.
That approach has the players looking fitter than in recent seasons, heading off a fresh wave of injuries. It lets Mourinho field almost his entire squad every week, handing each man the right role at the right moment.
He came back to Real Madrid to win titles. To get there, though, he first had to build a physically tougher team, the very thing that had plagued them in previous seasons.
That first target now looks ticked off. Expecting zero injuries between now and the end of the season would be fanciful, but the rate of absences has dropped sharply since Mourinho arrived at the Santiago Bernabéu.
While everyone debated tactics and team sheets, Mourinho was fighting his real battle in the gym and the treatment room. His point: titles aren't built on skill alone, but on physical readiness first.
