{"id":74433,"date":"2026-08-23T03:37:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T03:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/74433\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T03:37:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T03:37:06","slug":"mourinho-has-winning-start-at-madrid-inter-cruises-and-man-united-loses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/74433\/","title":{"rendered":"Mourinho has winning start at Madrid, Inter cruises and Man United loses"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILAN (AP) \u2014 Jos\u00e9 Mourinho ‘s second stint in charge of Real Madrid<\/a> got off to a winning start as his team snatched a 2-1 victory at Espanyol<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

In Italy, Inter Milan<\/a> kicked off its title defense with a dominant 4-1 win over newly-promoted Monza in Serie A .<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in Europe, Manchester United lost 2-0 at newly-promoted Hull in the Premier League, while in France, last season\u2019s runner-up Lens comfortably beat Auxerre 5-2.<\/p>\n

Esp\u00ed gives Mourinho winning start<\/p>\n

Carlos Espi<\/a> came off the bench to score a late winner for Madrid on his debut for the Spanish giant.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old Esp\u00ed was one of the standouts of La Liga<\/a> last season and Madrid reportedly paid Levante<\/a> 25 million euros ($28 million) for him.<\/p>\n

Esp\u00ed was brought on in the 79th minute and scored 11 minutes later, pouncing after Kylian Mbappe<\/a> had been knocked off the ball and firing past Marko Dmitrovic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jude Bellingham<\/a> headed in a free kick in the ninth minute and almost scored in similar fashion early in the second half but saw his header fingertipped onto the crossbar by Dmitrovic.<\/p>\n

Alex Calatrava<\/a> had scored a deserved equalizer for the Espanyol in the 30th minute, sweeping the ball past Thibaut Courtois<\/a> for his first La Liga goal.<\/p>\n

Mourinho was hired in June and officially took over in July at the start of the preseason.<\/p>\n

He is back for a second stint with Madrid some 13 years after he left the club. He was in charge from 2010-13, winning a Spanish league and a Copa<\/a> del Rey.<\/p>\n

It was Madrid’s first match of the season as they and defending champion Barcelona<\/a> sat out the first weekend because they had players return later from the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Esposito shines from the start<\/p>\n

Inter forward Pio Esposito had a breakout season last campaign and the 21-year-old started right where he left off for the Nerazzurri.<\/p>\n

An impressive backheel flick from Esposito put the hosts 3-1 up in early in the second half, either side of Inter goals from Piotr Zielinski<\/a> and Yann Bisseck<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Inter \u2014 which dominated Italian soccer last season, winning both the league and the cup in Cristian Chivu\u2019s first year in charge \u2014 got off to a great start when a fierce long-range shot from Hakan Calhanoglu<\/a> gave it the lead in the sixth minute. <\/p>\n

But sloppy defending for Monza\u2019s equalizer showed just why Inter signed England defenders Djed Spence and John Stones in the offseason.<\/p>\n

Stones came on late on while Spence was in the stands along with England teammate Curtis Jones, who completed his move to Inter on Friday.<\/p>\n

Last year’s runner-up, Napoli, won 2-0 at Genoa thanks to two late goals, from Kevin De Bruyne and Antonio Vergara.<\/p>\n

Como \u2014 which surprised with a fourth-place finish last season \u2014 was held to a 1-1 draw at Udinese.<\/p>\n

Hull stuns Man United<\/p>\n

Hull made a dream return to the Premier League after a nine-year absence, beating Manchester United 2-0 to puncture any preseason optimism surrounding the 20-time champions.<\/p>\n

First-half goals from Semi Ajayi and Nobel Mendy at set-pieces consigned United to a tepid loss away to a team that was promoted via the second-tier Championship playoffs at the end of last season and is widely expected to be among the relegation candidates.<\/p>\n

Tottenham, one of the biggest spenders in Europe this summer with $300 million \u2014 and counting \u2014 of new players in its squad, was overwhelmed in a 3-0 defeat at Brentford.<\/p>\n

Auxerre self destructs<\/p>\n

Auxerre gave away two penalties and also played most of the match with 10 men after defender Christ Makosso<\/a> was shown a straight red card for a foul on Abadallah Sima in the 35th minute.<\/p>\n

Florian Thauvin<\/a> converted both penalties \u2013 the second one at the second time of asking after Auxerre goalkeeper Mamadou Diop saved the initial attempt but was off his line.<\/p>\n

All of Lens goals, apart from Thauvin\u2019s first 12th-minute penalty, came in the second half.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full soccer coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN (AP) \u2014 Jos\u00e9 Mourinho ‘s second stint in charge of Real Madrid got off to a winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28573,3362,93,643,91,557,85,82,1453,83,1496],"class_list":["post-74433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-madrid","tag-alex-calatrava","tag-carlos-espi","tag-espanyol","tag-event_recap","tag-jude-bellingham","tag-kylian-mbappe","tag-laliga","tag-madrid","tag-marko-dmitrovic","tag-real-madrid","tag-thibaut-courtois"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}