Mourinho: "I want the Bernabéu to welcome the team with passion"
"It’s the first home match, and every point is important," stated our coach.
Mourinho appeared before the media in the press room at the Ciudad Real Madrid on the day before the match against Real Sociedad, corresponding to the first matchday of the League, which will take place at the Bernabéu (Wednesday, 9:00 pm CEST; Orange TV and Movistar LaLiga): "First home match. It is one of the 19 we will play at home and one of the 38 we will play in the championship. Every point is important. The goal is to win, respecting a team that deserves respect. A team with identity and quality players, who will surely give us a tough match."
"At Espanyol's ground, we felt a lot of support from their fans for their team. At the Bernabéu, we hope for the support of our people. What I expect is for the players to have the same hunger to win the match, the same attitude, resilience, strength, and calmness to face a difficult game. I hope the fans can look at the team and recognize this kind of mentality, and maybe this kind of mentality can make the Bernabéu even stronger.”
Match load
"Without taking away the merit that Espanyol deserves for their match, one thing that made the difference is that they are a team without players in the World Cup, who have worked together and played a lot of friendlies, and who presented themselves with a level of intensity that we don’t have. The most important case, even though it’s a game-changer from a physical standpoint, is Jude. You saw it. At a moment when we needed to score and were tied, I couldn’t keep him on the pitch any longer. Obviously, there is a difference, but we also have a base structure with players who have worked longer and are in a better fitness level."
"After that, playing also does good, and that’s why you have to manage well between not playing too much and not playing at all. For example, I brought Cucu on the pitch thinking he could bring us something, as he did, but obviously, he has about 30-35 minutes to give, which is what I gave him. It’s management we do based on objective and scientific data. We have people working at that level. It’s also clear, with my vision, experience, and communication with the players, that there’s something more important, which is the knowledge each player has about themselves."
Return to the Bernabéu
“I don’t want the Bernabéu to welcome me in a particular way; I want it to welcome the team as its team, as its passion. I know last season didn’t end well, and at some point, it might have seemed like that love was going through a complicated phase. What I want is for us to start from scratch, though in this case, it’s not entirely from scratch. I think people have already gotten a feeling for the way the team is working, its commitment, and the will to do things right. That’s the most important thing; I’m not important. If you ask me about my feeling, I’d tell you that I’m perfectly capable of controlling my emotions and playing normally in a match that isn’t normal because it’s a three-point game, and we need to win it. I’d really like the team to feel something different than it did last season, especially in the final stretch. Let’s go together.”
Do referees treat Vini Jr. and Lamine differently?
“Last year, I didn’t watch every Madrid and Barcelona game. I can’t tell you much because I didn’t follow them week by week, game by game. What I can say, because I feel it in friendly matches, is that outside Spain, there’s a general difference between Vini and other players; I’m not talking about Lamine. If you enter into a dynamic, you get into a spiral that opponents sense. And when an opponent feels they can, they do. It seems very obvious to me.”
“It’s a bit like small children; they push boundaries as far as you let them. Football players on the pitch are the same. If I can torment Vini, I can pressure him either physically or verbally; if a yellow card only comes after 10 fouls or if I can almost reach the point of aggression. Obviously, it’s a treatment I don’t like, and as I said the other day, people who want to interpret my words as situational words can look back at what I said when I was the coach of Benfica. It’s very simple: when I was the coach of Benfica, I only cared about Benfica; I didn’t care about Real Madrid. I try to help Vini have more emotional control, but at the same time, the match begins, and three minutes later, he gets kicked, which is an aggression. It doesn’t matter if it’s a kick that breaks his L4, L5, and cervical vertebrae; it’s still aggression, it’s a kick, and it’s a red card.”
The officiating against Espanyol
“When you ask me about the referee from the last match, from a technical point of view and after watching the game several times, he did very well. There was a small situation I doubted on the field, but then I perfectly accepted that it was a hypothetical second yellow for the Espanyol player early in the second half for a stamp on Carreras. But I understand that it wasn’t a second yellow. The red card for the aggression on Vinicius, I also understand that the referee didn’t see it. I understand that the fourth official didn’t want it to be his decision. The VAR, I can say, didn’t do its job very well. But I liked the referee a lot. Do I trust Spanish refereeing? I always say the same thing. Before each match, I always trust the referee. After the match? Sometimes there are things I don’t like. If you’re asking this to bring up the past and whether I now doubt, at that level, I don’t doubt. I don’t think there’s a referee in Spain today who goes onto the field thinking he’s a friend of Negreira or that Negreira asked him for a favor years ago. On this matter, I fully side with the honesty of Spanish referees.”
Provocations against Vini
“There’s a situation on the field and off the field. Regarding the reaction from the crowd, which isn’t racist or homophobic but rather the typical insult from a normal supporter, I think he can control his relationship with the opposing crowd. But in the game—kicks, fouls, penalties, and all that accumulation of frustration—it’s the referee’s responsibility. I start the match and get kicked; with my personality, maybe I’d get a red card a minute later. The referee is the one who has to be there and the one who has to protect all the players and the game. At that point, I think it’s very hard to help Vini. But in his relationship with opposing stadiums, that’s something we can work on.”
Are you calmer now?
“For years now, not just now, I’ve felt calmer, with more control over my emotions. But we’ll have to face difficult and frustrating situations that will come, which haven’t come yet because we won the first match, and I haven’t seen anyone slacking off yet. I like that people work for Real Madrid, not just at Real Madrid. So far, I haven’t felt any laziness; I’ve seen that everyone wants to give their best. Maybe it’s the players and the people who work here who are protecting me from the darker side of my personality. But I feel good this way.”
Squad
“For me, it’s closed, but with the market still open. You never know what might happen. You don’t know if a player will come to you and say they want to leave because you’ve benched them for two consecutive matches. I see everyone very involved and with a great sense of unity, but it’s something that can always happen. I don’t know if the president or José Ángel might call to say we have an incredible offer for a player. In my mind, the squad is closed, and I don’t have any requests. I’m very happy with the players I have. If someone leaves now, I wouldn’t be happy. I’d like to keep this squad for the entire season.”
Enjoy all the videos of this match on RM Play
Tactical fit
“The most complicated thing is when you don’t have top-level players or when, at the first problem you have—be it an injury or a suspension—there aren’t players who can maintain the level. That’s the biggest problem a coach can have. I’ve had it in recent years because I haven’t exactly been at the best teams in Europe. That’s the biggest problem I won’t have here. By telling you the points I consider most difficult, I’m also telling my opponents something I hope they don’t understand—or that they only understand after the match or after losing. If you ask me whether I want all three (Vini Jr., Bellingham, and Mbappé) or if I’d prefer just two, I want all three, and I think what they bring positively far outweighs any potential tactical lack of synergy. I’m here to try to help with any decisions that might need to be made.”
Return to the Bernabéu
“I don’t want the Bernabéu to welcome me in a particular way; I want it to welcome the team as its team, as its passion. I know last season didn’t end well, and at some point, it might have seemed like that love was going through a complicated phase. What I want is for us to start from scratch, though in this case, it’s not entirely from scratch. I think people have already gotten a feeling for the way the team is working, its commitment, and the will to do things right. That’s the most important thing; I’m not important. If you ask me about my feeling, I’d tell you that I’m perfectly capable of controlling my emotions and playing normally in a match that isn’t normal because it’s a three-point game, and we need to win it. I’d really like the team to feel something different than it did last season, especially in the final stretch. Let’s go together.”
Do referees treat Vini Jr. and Lamine differently?
“Last year, I didn’t watch every Madrid and Barcelona game. I can’t tell you much because I didn’t follow them week by week, game by game. What I can say, because I feel it in friendly matches, is that outside Spain, there’s a general difference between Vini and other players; I’m not talking about Lamine. If you enter into a dynamic, you get into a spiral that opponents sense. And when an opponent feels they can, they do. It seems very obvious to me.”
“It’s a bit like small children; they push boundaries as far as you let them. Football players on the pitch are the same. If I can torment Vini, I can pressure him either physically or verbally; if a yellow card only comes after 10 fouls or if I can almost reach the point of aggression. Obviously, it’s a treatment I don’t like, and as I said the other day, people who want to interpret my words as situational words can look back at what I said when I was the coach of Benfica. It’s very simple: when I was the coach of Benfica, I only cared about Benfica; I didn’t care about Real Madrid. I try to help Vini have more emotional control, but at the same time, the match begins, and three minutes later, he gets kicked, which is an aggression. It doesn’t matter if it’s a kick that breaks his L4, L5, and cervical vertebrae; it’s still aggression, it’s a kick, and it’s a red card.”
The officiating against Espanyol
“When you ask me about the referee from the last match, from a technical point of view and after watching the game several times, he did very well. There was a small situation I doubted on the field, but then I perfectly accepted that it was a hypothetical second yellow for the Espanyol player early in the second half for a stamp on Carreras. But I understand that it wasn’t a second yellow. The red card for the aggression on Vinicius, I also understand that the referee didn’t see it. I understand that the fourth official didn’t want it to be his decision. The VAR, I can say, didn’t do its job very well. But I liked the referee a lot. Do I trust Spanish refereeing? I always say the same thing. Before each match, I always trust the referee. After the match? Sometimes there are things I don’t like. If you’re asking this to bring up the past and whether I now doubt, at that level, I don’t doubt. I don’t think there’s a referee in Spain today who goes onto the field thinking he’s a friend of Negreira or that Negreira asked him for a favor years ago. On this matter, I fully side with the honesty of Spanish referees.”
Provocations against Vini
“There’s a situation on the field and off the field. Regarding the reaction from the crowd, which isn’t racist or homophobic but rather the typical insult from a normal supporter, I think he can control his relationship with the opposing crowd. But in the game—kicks, fouls, penalties, and all that accumulation of frustration—it’s the referee’s responsibility. I start the match and get kicked; with my personality, maybe I’d get a red card a minute later. The referee is the one who has to be there and the one who has to protect all the players and the game. At that point, I think it’s very hard to help Vini. But in his relationship with opposing stadiums, that’s something we can work on.”
Are you calmer now?
“For years now, not just now, I’ve felt calmer, with more control over my emotions. But we’ll have to face difficult and frustrating situations that will come, which haven’t come yet because we won the first match, and I haven’t seen anyone slacking off yet. I like that people work for Real Madrid, not just at Real Madrid. So far, I haven’t felt any laziness; I’ve seen that everyone wants to give their best. Maybe it’s the players and the people who work here who are protecting me from the darker side of my personality. But I feel good this way.”
Squad
“For me, it’s closed, but with the market still open. You never know what might happen. You don’t know if a player will come to you and say they want to leave because you’ve benched them for two consecutive matches. I see everyone very involved and with a great sense of unity, but it’s something that can always happen. I don’t know if the president or José Ángel might call to say we have an incredible offer for a player. In my mind, the squad is closed, and I don’t have any requests. I’m very happy with the players I have. If someone leaves now, I wouldn’t be happy. I’d like to keep this squad for the entire season.”
Enjoy all the videos of this match on RM Play
Tactical fit
“The most complicated thing is when you don’t have top-level players or when, at the first problem you have—be it an injury or a suspension—there aren’t players who can maintain the level. That’s the biggest problem a coach can have. I’ve had it in recent years because I haven’t exactly been at the best teams in Europe. That’s the biggest problem I won’t have here. By telling you the points I consider most difficult, I’m also telling my opponents something I hope they don’t understand—or that they only understand after the match or after losing. If you ask me whether I want all three (Vini Jr., Bellingham, and Mbappé) or if I’d prefer just two, I want all three, and I think what they bring positively far outweighs any potential tactical lack of synergy. I’m here to try to help with any decisions that might need to be made.”
Valverde's Position
“For me, he is a midfielder. Then, depending on the opponent, who he's playing with, and our objectives, he can be a more positional or mobile player. This concept that midfielders are only responsible for building play is something that is losing ground in football. If there's a team with an incredible number 6 who controls all movements and does man-marking, what happens? They won't touch the ball seventy times anymore, it'll be thirty. A team needs to have other solutions. Look, for example, at our difference between Trent and Dumfries. A fullback today can be a winger or a player like Trent, who plays inside and has a very important passing ability for building play. That's why I'm not keen on identifying Tchouameni as a six, Camavinga as a six, Fede as an eight, or Bernardo as a ten. Things blur a bit during the match.”
Can Espí and Mbappé start?
“Our evolution as a team and the start of the season, without Kylian, we've done it with Endrick. It's a different offensive profile. Carlos (Espí) is another profile, but given how the game was, with Espanyol sitting deep practically without exiting and with Kylian trying to drop back and take the ball to make an individual play and eliminate one or two players, I thought Carlos could be important to suffocate the opponent. With Trent on the field, the quality of crosses increases significantly as well. Having the giant there could also be a solution.”
Tchouameni
“He hasn't had a relapse. He suffered a lot during the World Cup, as is normal. In the World Cup, you suffer. If you have to play injured, knowing that afterward, you have a month of vacation, you take all the risks, and he did that. As you've seen, he didn't play a couple of matches, but then in the semifinal, he plays again, and that's when he has an issue. The vacation period wasn't enough. Obviously, there's the player who, seeing the team being built, wants to try. He tried, he could have continued, but we've decided that you can't start a season suffering. You can finish a season suffering in the last month or couple of months, but you can't start a season in August not being 100%. In this sense, we've decided with him, the staff, and the medical department to return at 100%. We'll wait. If it's one more week, it will be one more week, but we won't push him.”
Does it seem unfair to you to play four matches in 12 days?
“No. I have to thank La Liga, which had the common sense to delay by one more week for the teams that had many players in the World Cup. It would have been an even bigger problem to have played the first match against Real Sociedad two weeks ago. None of the World Cup players would have played. That's why La Liga had the common sense to give all the teams with World Cup players the opportunity to delay by a week. If we now have this accumulation, it's a consequence of something positive. Professional squads have to play three matches a week. If any player is struggling more, if the scientific data and the player's common sense say so, they won't play, and another will.”
Endrick's Recovery
“I'm not able to say. There's a small tendonitis in the muscle. It's a matter of prevention before it becomes a big problem. He's a player I like a lot and who has had many contacts from clubs that wanted him on loan or transferred. I didn't want to loan or sell him because I like the player, and I'd like to work with this young player who has important talents. I'm not sure if he will make it to Ancelotti's first squad call-up for the national team, but given that one of my great friends is the coach of my players, it's a big advantage. Carlo will call me directly.”
Disclaimer: Translation generated by artificial intelligence. It may contain inaccuracies.