José Mourinho's Vision for Real Madrid: Güler as Özil's Heir and Mbappé's Partner

José Mourinho has walked back into Valdebebas with an old idea in mind and a new protagonist to carry it out.

Real Madrid want their transition game back. The one that once turned the Bernabéu into a runway for Cristiano Ronaldo, Mesut Özil and a team built to kill on the counter. This time, the plan has Kylian Mbappé in Ronaldo’s role – and Arda Güler cast as the man to revive the Özil script.

Güler in the Özil role, Mbappé in the Ronaldo lane

According to reports from Spain, Mourinho’s blueprint leans heavily on a partnership that already flashed into life last season: Güler linking with Mbappé in quick, vertical attacks. The idea is simple and ruthless. Mbappé attacks space as the spearhead. Güler supplies him, operating between the lines, threading passes into gaps that barely exist.

Inside the club, the comparison has been brewing for months. Güler, 21, is increasingly viewed as the natural heir to Özil’s old job description. Not as a copy, but as the player best suited to those responsibilities: receiving in tight pockets, playing on the half-turn, breaking deep defensive blocks with one pass that changes everything.

Spanish media have been circling that parallel since his €30 million move from Fenerbahce in the summer of 2023. Shared Turkish roots made the link obvious. Their playing profiles hardened it. Both live off progressive passing, peripheral vision in crowded zones and a calmness in the final third that makes panic belong to the defenders, not the playmaker.

Now Mourinho is back, and the comparison has a new edge. He was the coach who squeezed every drop out of Özil in his first spell at Madrid, turning the German into the chief supplier for a goal machine. The question is whether he can build a similar axis with Güler and Mbappé.

A flexible talent waiting for a fixed role

Güler’s first year in Spain has been a lesson in adaptation rather than domination. He has not been frozen out, but he has not nailed down a guaranteed starting place either in this star-laden squad.

He has drifted across roles: starting on the right wing, moving into the right half-space, even dropping deeper to help in the build-up. Those shifts underlined his tactical intelligence and technical range, yet they also meant he rarely owned one area of the pitch in the way Özil once did.

Mourinho wants to change that. The Portuguese coach is intent on maximising the qualities that make Güler special: combination play, creativity, the ability to accelerate attacks with one or two touches rather than long dribbles. The plan, as described in Spain, is to give him a clearly defined brief at the heart of Madrid’s transition game instead of using him as a utility option across the right side.

Whether Mourinho has already laid out that vision behind closed doors remains unclear. What is clear is that he is working intensely on the squad structure and on how to fit Güler’s profile into a team that now revolves around Mbappé’s devastating movement.

Pre-season as an audition for “Mesut Özil 2.0”

Timing helps everyone. Turkey’s early World Cup exit means Güler returns to club duty without the fatigue of a long summer tournament. While many teammates manage minutes and recovery, he can train, day after day, under Mourinho’s eye.

That gives the coach something rare at Real Madrid: time on the grass with a young midfielder he wants to mould into a central figure. Pre-season becomes more than fitness work. It turns into a live laboratory for the “Mesut Özil 2.0” role described by Mundo Deportivo.

The concept is clear. Güler operates as the advanced connector, the player who links midfield to Mbappé at speed, who can also unlock low blocks when Madrid are forced to probe instead of sprint. He has already shown glimpses of those natural qualities since arriving – the disguised passes, the angles nobody else sees, the calm touch when the box is crowded.

Now comes the real test. Can he turn flashes into a full-time job description in a team that demands end product, not just promise? Mourinho, the architect of the first great Madrid transition era of the modern age, is ready to find out.