Endrick's ten minutes and Madrid's missing three for Inter

Real Madrid's Champions League opener is on Tuesday night, and Monday's training session sorted out who can play in it. Aurélien Tchouaméni, Endrick and Thiago Pitarch all returned to the group ahead of Inter's visit to the Santiago Bernabéu on 8 September 2026 — while three more names stayed unavailable for a reason no fitness coach can fix.

The unavailable three are the real story. And one of them is banned for something he did against Real Madrid.

Three Back on the Grass

The returns first. Tchouaméni, Endrick and the young midfielder Pitarch rejoined group training on Monday, three days after the 1-0 defeat at Betis that ended Madrid's perfect start under José Mourinho. Tchouaméni's timing matters most, for reasons the next section makes painfully clear.

Endrick's return comes with a number attached. Mourinho has capped the Brazilian at a maximum of ten minutes against Inter — as relayed from the coach's Spanish-language remarks by Diario AS — and the precision is the point. A coach who puts a stopwatch on a cameo is protecting a recovery, not rating a player; it is the same managed-minutes logic Bayern are applying to Jamal Musiala this month, arriving at the Bernabéu in miniature.

A Midfield Banned in Two Different Shirts

Now the absences. Arda Güler, Eduardo Camavinga and Bernardo Silva are all suspended for the opener, carrying red cards over from last season's Champions League — UEFA wipes yellow cards between campaigns, but reds travel. Güler and Camavinga collected theirs in the quarter-final exit to Bayern Munich, both for second bookings, Güler's reportedly shown after the final whistle for protesting to the referee.

Bernardo Silva's is the one that closes the loop. His straight red came while playing for Manchester City — a deliberate handball to stop a goal in the round-of-16 tie, against Real Madrid, with Vinícius Júnior converting the resulting penalty. He has since become a Madrid player, and the ban has followed him through the transfer. The suspension he earned trying to stop this club now costs it: three midfielders out at once, in two different shirts' worth of offences, for the biggest night of Madrid's September.

That is the puzzle Mourinho actually faces on Tuesday, and it is why Monday's sight of Tchouaméni back on the grass mattered more than a routine training note. Inter arrive with an absence of their own — Federico Dimarco is reported to have been left out on precautionary grounds with knee discomfort — but only one of these teams is missing a midfield.

Real Madrid Availability

• BACK IN TRAINING — Aurélien Tchouaméni, Endrick, Thiago Pitarch (rejoined the group Monday 7 September). Endrick capped at around ten minutes for the opener, per Diario AS.
• SUSPENDED for Inter only — Arda Güler and Eduardo Camavinga (second yellows in last season's quarter-final against Bayern) and Bernardo Silva (straight red carried from his Manchester City spell); all three remain available in LaLiga.
• Opponent note — Inter are reported to be without Federico Dimarco (knee, precautionary).

The Bernabéu gets its first European night of the season on Tuesday 8 September; LaLiga resumes for Madrid at the weekend with the suspended trio available again. Endrick will get his ten minutes — Mourinho's job is working out which midfield fills the other eighty. Cover photo: the Santiago Bernabéu, by Zoser, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.