Who can forget the wars of attrition between the two teams during the Special One's last spell at the Santiago Bernabeu?!
Box office doesn't even begin to cover the star quality that the Portuguese has and, perhaps uniquely, that allows the focus to remain on him even when his teams perhaps aren't performing as they should be.
Mourinho has already made his mark at Real Madrid
Mourinho certainly hasn't wasted any time making his mark at the club this time around, with Bernardo Silva, Ibrahima Konate, Denzel Dumfries, Marc Cucurella, Carlos Espi and Yan Diomande arriving, and David Alaba, Dani Ceballos, Dani Carvajal, Franco Mastantuono, Fran Gonzalez, Fran Garcia, Mario Martin, Cesar Palacios, and Gonzalo Garcia all departing.
That's unlikely to be the end of the summer outgoings either, as Aston Villa are rumoured to be keen to bring Endrick to Villa Park.
What's more, at this stage, there would appear to be every chance that the Premier League outfit could be successful in the pursuit of a loan for the 22-year-old.
Endrick would be third choice at Los Blancos
Espi's arrival after Gonzalo Garcia's departure effectively means that Mourinho sees the Brazilian as the third choice as a centre-forward, behind the new signing and Kylian Mbappe.
There's little chance of Endrick enjoying a spell on either wing, given that once Rodrygo returns from injury, Mourinho has him, Vini Jr., Silva, Diomande and Brahim Diaz as other attacking options.
It therefore makes sense for all parties for a deal to be agreed as soon as practicable.
The Special One is reported to have not forced Endrick's hand as to what's next, leaving the door open for him to succeed at Los Blancos, whilst also being honest enough to acknowledge that the road ahead could be a difficult one for him.
He will let the player make his own decision, which is believed to hinge on whether he could be a confirmed starter at a club in the Champions League, of which Villa are one.
A fine return at Lyon
Endrick showed during a successful loan spell at Lyon that he has what it takes to succeed at the highest level, and in 21 games in all competitions for the French side, he scored eight goals and provided eight assists.
To give some perspective on just how good a return that was, only Corentin Tolisso (11) and Pavel Sulc (13) outscored him during 25/26, and both played at least 11 games more than the Brazilian.
Indeed, Tolisso actually played over 1,000 more minutes than his colleague, and yet managed only three more goals. With Endrick having hit the woodwork twice too, conceivably, he could've ended the campaign just one goal behind Tolisso.
The Brazilian's nine fast breaks were easily the most in the Lyon side across the campaign, and his pace, directness and strength in possession are all assets that Unai Emery would covet from his centre-forward.
Only Abner Vinicius topped Endrick's 63.46% shot accuracy during the season, though one must factor in that the former provided just 21 total shots (scoring four goals), compared to the latter's 63 shots (33 on target) - no Lyon player had more either in total or on target.
Passing accuracy has to be improved
One area where the barrel-chested front man needs to improve is with his passing and associative play, given that his 75.14% accuracy was the third worst in the entire Lyon squad.
Whilst Emery will certainly be enamoured by Endrick's goal output, he'd certainly let the Brazilian know if passes into him don't stick, or he simply isn't able to find a teammate for large parts of games.
There's also not much point playing high balls into him, given that he won just three of his 21 aerial duels last season. He did, however, emerge successfully from 90 of his ground one-on-one duels.
Nine tackles won and nine lost from 18 attempted gave Endrick a nice round 50% success, though there too, an improvement could certainly be made.
Fortunately for the player, Emery makes a habit of bringing out the best in his charges, so if the Midlands-based outfit are able to hammer out a loan deal before the start of the new campaign, there's every reason to think that this move could be a roaring success for the Brazilian.
Jason Pettigrove has been the features writer for Flashscore since 2025, utilising Opta data to form the basis of his articles. He has previously worked for high profile football clubs, news and media outlets, both in print and digital, and can usually be found watching FC Barcelona when time permits. You can read more of his pieces here.
