Endrick's Return to Real Madrid: A Long Road Back

Endrick is due to pull on a Real Madrid shirt again today, against Rayo Vallecano at the Santiago Bernabéu. It sounds simple. It isn’t.

Nine months have gone by since his last appearance for the club, a game almost everyone wanted to forget. Real Madrid opened their Copa del Rey campaign on 17 December 2025 in Talavera de la Reina, scraping a 3-2 win in a match overshadowed by tension with Xabi Alonso and carried, above all, by Kylian Mbappé’s personal chase of Cristiano Ronaldo’s single-year goals record.

For Endrick, that night was a full stop. He already knew he was on his way to Lyon, trying to protect his World Cup chances and avoid vanishing from the Brazil conversation. The move didn’t launch him into a new orbit. It simply paused his Madrid story.

Now the story resumes – but under very different conditions.

A return, but from the back of the queue

Endrick comes back into a Real Madrid attack that looks nothing like the one he left. Mbappé dominates the frontline and the dressing room. Espai has muscled his way into the rotation and convinced the staff he is a real option. The fight for minutes has hardened.

Physically, the Brazilian is starting from behind. A murky muscle problem, handled with layers of caution and ambiguity, has kept him out of the first five games of the season. This is Madrid’s sixth match; it will be his first.

José Mourinho, though, has drawn a clear line: Endrick still belongs in his project. He has repeated it in private and in public. The message is simple – the door is not closed – but the conditions are strict.

The coach laid them out before the Inter Milan clash. No rush, no miracles, no shortcuts.

“He is ready to play five or ten minutes at the most,” Mourinho said.

So the big return comes with a small clock. Endrick will not walk straight back into the hierarchy. These first minutes are nothing more than the opening steps of a long climb: regain fitness, recover rhythm, then try to punch through a crowded front line.

From Mbappé’s deputy to spare part?

When Endrick learned he would be returning to Real Madrid, the plan looked different. He was expected to serve as Mbappé’s deputy, to give the Frenchman breathers, to offer Mourinho a genuine alternative and extra punch in attack. Gonzalo’s likely departure seemed to clear even more space for him.

That scenario evaporated quickly.

Mbappé, fresh from his World Cup triumph and burning to keep himself in the Ballon d’Or conversation, has pushed for every possible minute. Rest is not part of his vocabulary. At the same time, Espai’s emergence has redrawn the pecking order. The newcomer has shown he can add something, and he has done it at exactly the moment Endrick has been absent.

The Brazilian now finds himself squeezed between Mbappé’s relentless appetite and Espai’s rise as a new, credible solution. The competition is harsher than he imagined when he left for Lyon.

The right flank: opportunity in a traffic jam

One card still falls in Endrick’s favour: he can play in more than one position. Unlike Espai, he is not locked to a single role. That versatility could be his way back into Mourinho’s thoughts.

The problem is that every path is jammed.

The right wing looks like the most realistic opening. It suits some of his qualities, and it gives Mourinho tactical flexibility. But that corridor is already crowded with talent and investment.

The club spent 125 million euros on Diomandé, yet even that fee has not guaranteed him a permanent place on the team sheet. Arda Güler has been the main occupant of the role, starting three of the first four league games before missing the fifth against Inter Milan through suspension. He impressed every time he stepped on the pitch. When Güler sat out, Brahim stepped in and convinced as well.

So yes, Endrick can move across the front line. Yes, that helps. It still doesn’t hand him a clear lane. Every door he might walk through already has someone standing in it.

Mourinho refuses to let go

If Endrick needs a handhold, he finds it in Mourinho.

Tempting offers have landed on Madrid’s desk in recent weeks, including one from Roma. They could have given the Brazilian more minutes, less pressure, an easier environment. Mourinho said no.

“I received many offers, but I did not want to loan him out or sell him, because I admire him. He has great talent,” the Portuguese coach said weeks ago.

Those words matter. Mourinho wants to shape that talent at Real Madrid, not watch it grow somewhere else. He is betting that the long-term gain is worth the short-term strain on the squad list.

The bet is not without risk. Endrick returns after a long absence, into an attack that has only become more stacked and more ruthless in the battle for every minute.

Five minutes to change a season?

Today’s meeting with Rayo Vallecano is not a final verdict on Endrick. It is a beginning. A test run. A handful of minutes that could either reopen a chapter or confirm how far he has to go.

Mourinho will handle him with care, watching every sprint, every duel, every gesture. The goal is simple: turn that raw talent, dulled by months away, back into a real asset for Real Madrid.

Five minutes. Maybe ten. That is all he is likely to get.

For Endrick, it could be the start of a new ascent in white. The slope is steeper now, the competition sharper, and nothing at this club is guaranteed anymore. What he still has, though, is the backing of the man on the bench.

Between an expected return against Rayo, a merciless fight for places up front and a coach determined to refine him, Endrick stands on the edge of a new stage in his Madrid life.

The Bernabéu will see him again. The real question is whether this comeback marks a fleeting cameo – or the first steps of a genuine climb back into Real Madrid’s future.