He was the signing nobody made a fuss about. Six players arrived at Real Madrid this summer and five of them came with a headline attached; Carlos Espí came from Levante to be the reserve centre-forward after Gonzalo García’s departure, and was filed under squad depth. Twenty-two days after he walked into Valdebebas he won Madrid’s opening game of the season.
What has emerged since his 90th-minute winner at Espanyol is that the club did not sign him quietly by accident. They signed him deliberately, cheaply and fast — and José Mourinho has barely let him out of his sight since.
How Real Madrid signed Carlos Espí
According to Diario AS, as relayed by Madrid Universal, the deal was Juni Calafat’s idea and Mourinho’s phone call. The sporting department proposed the forward; the manager rang him personally to close it. The mechanism was a release clause at Levante set at just €25m — small enough that Madrid felt they had lifted him out from under the Premier League’s nose.
The number that justifies it is a strange one for a squad-filler. Espí scored 11 LaLiga goals in 2026 alone, per the same report — more than Kylian Mbappé managed in the same calendar year. He is 1.94m, which gives Madrid a physical profile the front line has lacked, and the club rate his back-to-goal play as much as his finishing.
There is one more advantage nobody planned for. Espí arrived on 31 July with a full pre-season ahead of him, while most of the squad were still returning from the World Cup. On Saturday night, in a game Mourinho openly admitted his players did not have the mileage for, that mattered.
Mourinho’s new favourite at Valdebebas
The relationship has moved quicker than the football. AS report that Espí has spent more time at Valdebebas than at his own home in Madrid since arriving, and that Mourinho now regularly takes breakfast, lunch and dinner with him, describing the forward as “a lot of fun”. Marc Cucurella, another fixture at the training ground, has become a close friend — the Spaniard having had no doubts about the move himself.
You could see the closeness at full time, when Mourinho gave his match-winner something closer to a paternal hug than a handshake. Espí’s own account of the instruction he was sent on with was as basic as it gets. Asked what the manager had told him, he replied, speaking to Bernabéu Digital: “To work and to give everything. To stay with Kylian and help him.”
“I’m the happiest man in the world because of the three points,” he added. On finding himself surrounded by Yan Diomande, Jude Bellingham, Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior at once: “It’s incredible, I hadn’t been on the pitch with them yet, with all four at the same time.” On the celebration: “It’s a complicated game and that rage was the result of all of it. It was madness.”
The caveat Madridistas should keep in mind
One goal is one goal, and it came in eleven minutes of competitive football against a side that had run itself into the ground. Espí was signed to be the alternative to Mbappé, not the answer to Madrid’s problems, and the club’s own framing is that he can combine with the front line rather than displace it. He has scored on both of his debuts, including his first Real Madrid goal in pre-season, which is the sort of run that raises expectations faster than a player can meet them.
Inside the dressing room the tone is warm but careful. “He’s a player who has been in training a short time and he looks strong and technical,” Thibaut Courtois said, per Bernabéu Digital. “Little by little. He’s a good player. He’s going to contribute a lot. Seeing Espí battle in training is very good. He’s made for these things. We’re happy with his goal. The impact from the bench can be the same as the impact of those who start.”
Bellingham put it more bluntly, and more Madrid. Asked about the winner, the Englishman said Espí had “scored as if he were Joselu Jr.” — a compliment every Madridista understands, and a reminder of exactly what the job is. Madrid have not bought a superstar. They have bought a €25m forward who scores when the game has gone flat, and on the evidence of one night, they got a bargain.
