Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho might not be very happy with the start his side have had in the Spanish League, but it is undeniably a fact that the team is a force to be reckoned with, especially in Europe and the performance against Manchester City in the first match day of the UEFA Champions League is testament to that fact. Real Madrid have not won the most prestigious club competition in the world since 2002 and Madrid president Florentino Perez hired the Portuguese maestro and assembled a galaxy of world class stars at a huge cost just so that the team could reach the very pinnacle of European football once again.

For a club of the stature of Real Madrid, a club that has won 9 European Cups, re-branded as the UEFA Champions League, not winning the title for 10 years might seem a bit strange and for the fans of the club, almost unacceptable. Moreover, for a club that buys players worth millions of dollars as if they were giving away pocket change, billions of dollars had been spent since 2002 for the club to succeed in the European stage.

At a time when Real Madrid have been lying in the doldrums, arch rivals Barcelona have won 3 UEFA Champions League in that same period and have also dominated the domestic League as well. Many managers had been brought in to the club to stop Barcelona’s long run of success and glory but other than Fabio Capello, few have succeeded in doing so. And that is why Real went into the market and brought in Jose Mourniho after the Portuguese tactician oversaw his club Inter Milan’s success in Europe.

Although Mourinho failed to win the League in his first season at the Spanish capital, he managed to stop the Catalan domination, winning the League last season on the back of a tremendous performance by star striker/winger Cristiano Ronaldo. For a man who is as hungry for success as the 49 year old, he will never be happy with winning just one Spanish League title with the capital club and is already gunning for the UEFA Champions League.

Having already won the tournament twice with two different teams, once with Inter Milan and once with the highly unfancied Portuguese side FC Porto, The Special One has all the credentials to take his side to the top of European football once again. And he has the side at his disposal to achieve that feat as well. But as we have seen in the past, it’s not the best sides that win all the times; sometimes, how a manager controls the huge egos in the side also plays an important part in a team’s success.

For a brilliant man manager like Mourinho, it might not be very difficult to achieve that, but there are certain problems within the club that he needs to deal with before he can go all out and that is where his skills come to be tested.