Real Madrid is knocking again on José Mourinho's door. According to Sky Germany, the contact is direct, and the Portuguese - currently sitting on the Benfica bench - is not closing the door. Even so, his conditions are stricter than anyone else's: full control and the deciding word on transfers.

President Florentino Pérez apparently wants the 63-year-old coach back at the Bernabéu. The question is whether he wants him enough to hand over the transfer book. The same Pérez who has spent years building a system in which the coach executes and the club decides, now has to compromise with a man who doesn't work that way.

Mourinho remembers the Bernabéu. From 2010 to 2013 he won three trophies, but also left a pile of burnt bridges in the dressing room. The return is coming at a moment when the club is heading toward a season without silverware, and the internal discipline is falling apart in the open: Aurélien Tchouaméni and Federico Valverde got into a fight at training, with Valverde ending up in hospital with a head injury. The club has already opened a disciplinary procedure against the two of them.

Financially, the operation isn't impossible. Mourinho's contract with Benfica has a release clause of 3 million euros - a number that for Real is a rounding error in the books. The expensive bit is the reputation cost if a deal is signed and then the situation explodes the way it did twelve years ago.

The question isn't whether Real can afford Mourinho. The question is whether Pérez can afford to be the second man in his own club.