Real Madrid Prepares for La Liga Opener Against Schalke 04
Real Madrid’s final dress rehearsal before La Liga takes them to Gelsenkirchen on Sunday, where Schalke 04 await and Jose Mourinho gets one last look at his squad under live fire.
Six days later, the real thing begins away to Espanyol in Barcelona. This is the last chance to tune, tweak and, for some, finally pull on the Real Madrid shirt for the first time.
New faces, old expectations
Mourinho’s squad in Germany will have a different feel. Yan Diomande, Marc Cucurella and Ibrahima Konate are all available and all still waiting for their Real Madrid debuts. The stage is set for them in the Veltins-Arena.
Kylian Mbappe is another storyline entirely. Back in training this week after his post-World Cup break, the French forward could make his first appearance under the Portuguese coach in this friendly. If he steps onto the pitch, even for a few minutes, the spotlight will swing firmly in his direction.
Bellingham and Tchouameni: the big doubts
The intrigue does not end there. According to Mundo Deportivo, the real suspense around this game lies with Jude Bellingham and Aurelien Tchouameni.
Bellingham returned to training on Wednesday. Mourinho must now judge whether the England international has enough rhythm and sharpness to be involved at all, or whether the risk before Espanyol is simply too great.
Tchouameni’s case is similar but more physical than tactical. The French midfielder is coming back from a minor muscular issue. The expectation is that he will be ready for the La Liga opener, yet his presence against Schalke is still up in the air.
Both are central to Mourinho’s blueprint. Bellingham is set to be restored to his natural role as an attacking midfielder, operating just behind the centre-forward, where his timing and penalty-box instincts can shape games. Tchouameni, by contrast, is bracing for a battle in the double pivot, with Federico Valverde, Bernardo Silva and Eduardo Camavinga all competing for two spots.
For now, though, their status for Sunday remains a question with no clear answer.
Injury list grows, six stay home
Some decisions have already been made for Mourinho. Raul Asencio, Ferland Mendy, Rodrygo, Thiago Pitarch and Eder Militao are all out and will remain in Madrid to continue their recovery work. None will travel to Germany.
They will be joined on the absentee list by Endrick. The Brazilian has suffered a muscle overload and is expected to miss the Schalke game as well, a precautionary move with the competitive season about to start.
Mourinho will be hoping that Endrick, Bellingham and Tchouameni are all available when the team walks out in Barcelona next week. The friendly in Gelsenkirchen may be important, but Espanyol is where judgments will start to count.
A historic summer in the academy
Away from the first team, another storyline has been quietly reshaping the club: a mass exodus from La Fabrica that shows no sign of slowing.
Real Madrid’s academy has already seen a wave of departures, and the next big move is expected to be Jacobo Ortega’s transfer to Strasbourg. If completed, it would make Ortega the most expensive sale of a Real Madrid youth player who has yet to feature for the first team.
And he is not expected to be the last.
According to AS, Manuel Angel and David Jimenez are also heading for the exit, with both players effectively at the end of their Castilla cycle. Interest in the pair stretches across the top flight, the second division and beyond, but no deal has yet reached the finish line.
The club has taken no chances. Both have been training separately and have been left out of Castilla’s pre-season friendlies and matchday squads to avoid any injury that might derail potential transfers.
Once Ortega’s sale and other outgoing deals are included, Real Madrid’s academy income this summer is set to exceed €200 million. Inside Valdebebas, it is already being described as a historic window.
Two standouts from a golden generation
Manuel Angel and Jimenez are not fringe names. They were pillars of Alvaro Arbeloa’s treble-winning youth generation, a group that also featured Nico Paz and Gonzalo Garcia.
Manuel Angel, 22, is a cerebral, ambidextrous midfielder who joined La Fabrica in 2014 and has long been viewed as one of the academy’s most refined products. Calm in possession and tactically mature, he broke into the first team towards the end of last season, making seven appearances. The next step is clear: he needs a club that can offer him regular minutes at senior level.
David Jimenez brings a different profile. An attacking full-back with one of the standout right feet in the academy, he has been praised for his leadership and aggressive, forward-thinking approach. Comparisons to Dani Carvajal have followed him through the ranks. He, too, tasted first-team football last season, impressing under both Xabi Alonso and Arbeloa.
Now both wait. So do Real Madrid and their representatives, scanning the market for the right proposal, the right project, the right path.
While Mourinho fine-tunes his squad in Gelsenkirchen, the club’s next generation is being scattered across Europe. The question is simple: when this historic summer is over, how different will Real Madrid look—on the pitch and far beyond it?
