Arda Güler: The New Özil in Mourinho's Real Madrid
At Valdebebas, the past is never just nostalgia. It is a tactical archive. And Jose Mourinho is reaching straight back into it.
The Portuguese coach, back in charge at Real Madrid, is reportedly drawing up a plan that would revive the old Bernabeu transition machine – the ferocious, vertical side that once tore teams apart on the break. At the heart of that idea sits a familiar structure: a ruthless left-sided finisher and a gifted playmaker between the lines.
Once, that was Cristiano Ronaldo and Mesut Özil.
Now, the blueprint has Kylian Mbappé and Arda Güler.
A familiar script, new protagonists
According to Spanish sports daily reports, Mourinho’s design leans heavily on the understanding Güler had already begun to develop with Mbappé at the start of last season. The Frenchman is expected to occupy the same devastating role Ronaldo made his own: the spearhead of every transition, the man every counterattack is angled towards.
Güler, meanwhile, is being groomed for the role Madrid once built around Özil. Internally, the 21-year-old is viewed as the ideal profile to take on those duties – the connector, the passer who sees spaces others don’t, the player who turns a loose ball in midfield into a clear chance with a single touch.
The comparison has followed him from the moment he arrived. When Madrid paid €30 million to prise him from Fenerbahce in the summer of 2023, the Özil parallels were immediate and relentless. Same Turkish roots. Same love of the killer pass. Same ability to thread the ball through packed defences that think they’ve closed every door.
Spanish media have kept that narrative alive ever since. Now Mourinho’s return gives it a sharper edge.
Mourinho and the No.10 he trusts
This is, after all, the coach who once extracted the very best version of Özil. During Mourinho’s first spell at the Bernabeu, the German became the purest expression of his playmaker: devastating in transition, ruthless in the final ball, constantly feeding Ronaldo’s runs.
That history matters. It colours every discussion about how Mourinho might use Güler.
Since landing in Madrid, the young midfielder has shown he is no luxury player waiting for the game to come to him. He has been shuffled across the right wing, used in the right half-space, and even dropped deeper to help in the build-up. Those roles have not given him a permanent starting place in this star-studded squad, but they have underlined something important: he understands the game, and he can adapt.
Mourinho, according to the reports, now wants to stop moving him around and start building around what he does best – combination play, creativity, and that instinctive feel for the final pass.
Whether he has already laid out that vision behind closed doors is not yet clear. What is clear is that the coaching staff are working intensely on the squad structure, and Güler’s name keeps coming up in the same sentence as Özil’s.
“Mesut Özil 2.0,” as Mundo Deportivo has framed it.
A rare window of opportunity
Timing helps the project. Turkey’s early exit from World Cup qualifying duty means Güler returns to club work without the fatigue of a long international campaign. No extended summer, no late arrival, no drip-fed reintegration.
For Mourinho, that is gold. A full pre-season with a creative midfielder of this profile is a luxury he did not always enjoy in his first Madrid tenure. Now he can drill movements, rehearse patterns, refine the chemistry between Güler and Mbappé before a competitive ball is kicked.
This is the testing ground. The weeks where a role stops being theory and becomes habit.
Güler, for his part, finally has the chance to argue for something more than minutes off the bench or a rotating assignment on the flank. The plan offers him a clearly defined leading role in a system that actually suits his strengths: receive between the lines, combine at speed, and unlock deep defences with one decisive ball.
He has already shown flashes that he has the natural qualities for it. The vision in tight spaces. The calm in crowded zones. The weight of pass that turns half-chances into tap-ins.
Now comes the real question for Madrid’s new-old era under Mourinho: can Arda Güler step fully into the mould of Özil’s old role, with Mbappé in the Ronaldo slot, and power a new transition monster at the Bernabeu – or will this be another elegant idea that never quite survives the reality of a squad full of stars?
