Mourinho made Real Madrid-Barcelona Clásico rivalry unmissable. Now, he's back for more - ESPN

José Mourinho says he doesn't look back. In August, at his debut news conference as returning Real Madrid coach after 13 years away from LaLiga, he was asked if he'd missed the Bernabéu.

«I'm not one for regrets,» he said. «I'm not one for [thinking about] bad decisions, missing things… I'm here today, there tomorrow. I don't think much about what I've left behind.»

In El Clásico, club football's most storied rivalry, Mourinho left plenty behind. In three tumultuous seasons in charge of Madrid between 2010 and 2013, he faced Barcelona 17 times in LaLiga, the Copa del Rey, the Spanish Supercopa and the UEFA Champions League.

— Watch El Clásico live, 10/25, 4 p.m. ET on ABC and ESPN+ (U.S.)
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For the first two years, his adversary in the Camp Nou dugout was Pep Guardiola; in the third, it was Guardiola's former assistant, Tito Vilanova. By the end, Mourinho's Clásico record read: five wins, six draws, and six defeats.

In that time, both teams delivered unprecedented 100-point seasons, their duelling stars pushing each other to new heights. In 2011-12, Lionel Messi scored a record 50 goals in LaLiga. It wasn't enough to beat Mourinho's Madrid to the title. But numbers alone cannot adequately describe that feverish period.

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This was, in many ways, peak Clásico. Pep vs. José. Messi vs. Cristiano Ronaldo. It wasn't always pretty; it was sometimes downright nasty. But it was always riveting. And there, at the centre of it all, revelling in the spotlight, was Mourinho,