Real Madrid Faces Deportivo La Coruña with Key Players Missing

Real Madrid will travel to face Deportivo La Coruña on Wednesday with a squad that looks more like a pre-season experiment than a full-dress rehearsal for La Liga.

José Mourinho named his travelling party on Tuesday, and the list of absentees is as striking as any tactical note. Eleven first‑team players have been left out, a cocktail of injuries and players still short of match fitness cutting deep into the spine of his side.

This is not a low-key summer for Madrid. With the 2026/27 campaign less than a fortnight away and Barcelona once again looming as the benchmark in Spain, every session, every friendly, every selection carries weight. Mourinho has been driving his squad through a demanding schedule, using games against Fiorentina and Ferencváros to test combinations, conditioning and resolve.

Now comes Deportivo, back in La Liga and eager to announce their return with a statement against the giants from the capital. On paper, it is a routine pre-season stop. In reality, it is another pressure point in Madrid’s build-up.

The squad sheet underlines that tension.

Marc Cucurella, Jude Bellingham, Thibaut Courtois, Rodrygo and Kylian Mbappé are all out of the trip. That list alone would unsettle most coaches: a starting goalkeeper, a generational midfielder, a marquee forward, and two established attackers missing in one sweep. Add Yan Diomandé, Ferland Mendy, Raúl Asencio, Ibrahima Konaté, Thiago Pitarch, and Éder Militão, and Mourinho is suddenly without depth as well as stardust.

This is not the polished, headline XI Madrid intend to unleash when the league opens. It is a stripped-back version, a group asked to carry the shirt while the stars build towards full sharpness.

For Mourinho, there is opportunity in the disruption. He can stretch his remaining options, push fringe players into uncomfortable roles, and stress-test the squad’s resilience away from home. For those on the fringes, this is the kind of night that can change a season: one performance, one display of authority, and a place in the manager’s thoughts when the real business begins.

Deportivo, “fresh off their own La Liga return,” will not care about Madrid’s problems. Riazor has never been a stadium that shows visiting sides much sympathy, and a weakened Real Madrid will only heighten the sense of possibility in the home dressing room.

Pre-season is supposed to be about rhythm, not risk. Yet with a cluster of key players watching from afar, Madrid’s trip to Galicia suddenly carries a sharper edge. The names on the absentee list tell their own story. The real question is what the players who do board the plane can write in their place.