There is a version of this summer in which Endrick leaves Real Madrid. Liverpool were reported to be readying €65 million. Chelsea circled in early August. Roma and Aston Villa watched. On Tuesday morning a group of Italian clubs became the latest to ask — and the answer that came back shut the Endrick transfer conversation down more firmly than anything Real Madrid have said all window.
According to Fabrizio Romano, relayed by Madrid Universal, Italian sides made contact with the club over the past 24 to 48 hours to ask about the Brazilian’s availability. The reply was unequivocal: Endrick is not for sale, and Los Blancos will not entertain offers for him before the window shuts on 31 August. Romano reports that the decision carries the backing of president Florentino Pérez, the club hierarchy and José Mourinho, and that the message has been delivered directly to Endrick and his representatives.
Here is what this piece works through:
- The enquiries from Italy, and the exact wording of Real Madrid’s refusal
- Why Pérez, the board and Mourinho all signing off on it changes the picture
- The Lyon loan that rebuilt Endrick’s stock — eight goals, eight assists in 21 games
- The commercial case for cashing in, and why the club have not taken it
- What can still move before the 31 August deadline
Background: how Endrick became a summer question at all
Endrick arrived at the Bernabéu as one of the most sought-after teenagers in world football and spent a year and a half unable to hold down a place. That is the short version, and it is fair. The longer version is that he was competing for minutes in a forward line stacked with established internationals, in a season that ended with Real Madrid trophyless for the first time since 2020-21.
January changed it. A loan to Lyon gave him what Madrid could not: a shirt. He scored eight goals and registered eight assists in 21 appearances in France, per Madrid Universal’s summary of the spell — a return that reads less like a young player finding his feet and more like one reminding Real Madrid why they signed him. He came back to Valdebebas on 1 July as a first-team player rather than a loanee, and we covered that return in our report on his Lyon exit.
What followed was a month of speculation rather than clarity. We reported Chelsea circling again on 9 August, then the €65m question Real Madrid did not want from Liverpool on Monday. Bernabéu Digital’s Monday market round-up carried the same Liverpool figure and added the club’s line: Real Madrid trust his future, and a sale is not currently the priority scenario. Tuesday’s news is that line hardening into a flat no.
The Endrick transfer position, as Romano reports it
The enquiries, and the answer
The detail worth holding on to is how little time the club took. Romano’s reporting describes enquiries made inside a 24-to-48-hour window and a response that did not involve a valuation, a counter-proposal or an invitation to come back with numbers. Madrid did not price him. They declined to trade.
That distinction matters in a market where "not for sale" is usually a negotiating position. Per Romano, none of the interested parties — AS Roma and Aston Villa, who had already been monitoring the situation, or Manchester United, who emerged asking whether a move could become possible — have been given any encouragement at all.
Who signed off on it
The names attached to the decision are the reason to take it seriously. Romano reports that Pérez, the Real Madrid hierarchy and Mourinho all want the 20-year-old in the squad. Unanimity between the president’s office and the dugout is not a given at this club, and it is usually the gap between those two positions that a selling summer opens up.
The second half of that report is arguably more significant: the message is said to have gone to the player and his representatives directly. A club that intends to keep its options open does not tell an agent the door is closed. On that reading, pushing for an exit this month would mean pushing against the president as well as the manager.
What Mourinho has told him
Mourinho has reportedly informed Endrick that he sees him as part of his plans for the coming season, according to the same report. That is a sentence worth reading carefully. It is not a promise of starts. In a forward line containing Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior, Rodrygo, Brahim Díaz, Franco Mastantuono, Carlos Espí and Yan Diomande, "part of the plans" can still mean a substitute’s role.
What it does rule out is the loan-or-sale limbo Endrick spent the last two windows in. He was also missing from the Schalke friendly through injury, as we reported in our team news from Gelsenkirchen, which is the one practical caveat on any read of his pre-season standing: he has had less of a run at Mourinho than Diomande or Espí have.
The counter-argument: there was a very good reason to sell
Madridistas are entitled to look at this and see money left on the table. Managing Madrid’s assessment of the summer window sets out the shape of the problem: Real Madrid have spent a club record on a 19-year-old right winger in Diomande, have not yet bought a second centre-back beyond Ibrahima Konaté, and missed out on Rodri — all while raising more than €200 million from academy sales alone.
A €65 million bid for a forward who is, on pre-season evidence, some way down the attacking pecking order would have funded exactly the two positions the club are still reported to want. Bernabéu Digital’s round-up has Josep Pedrerol saying a central midfielder could still arrive, Martin Zubimendi back on the radar, and Liverpool interested in Raúl Asencio — a situation we set out in Mourinho’s preferred exit list. None of it is a formal offer, and all of it should be read as reporting rather than fact.
The counter to the counter is the one Madrid appear to have made themselves. Selling a 20-year-old who has just produced eight goals and eight assists in half a season in Ligue 1, with a long domestic and European campaign ahead, is the kind of decision that gets re-litigated for a decade at this club. Real Madrid have a long and painful history of watching young forwards flourish somewhere else. They appear to have decided not to add to it for a reported €65 million.
Future outlook: what can still move before 31 August
A stated position is not a signed contract, and there are still two weeks of window left. The honest read is that Real Madrid’s refusal is real but not eternal: an offer well beyond the reported €65 million, arriving in the last 72 hours with a replacement already identified, would test it. Nothing in Romano’s reporting suggests such a bid exists.
The more useful thing to watch is Saturday. Real Madrid open LaLiga away to Espanyol at the RCDE Stadium, and whether Endrick is in that squad — and whether he gets minutes off the bench — will tell Madridistas more about Mourinho’s intentions than any briefing. The club have insisted for a fortnight that the squad is essentially complete; a settled Endrick is part of what makes that claim stand up.
There is also a longer horizon. Endrick is 20, and Madrid’s forward line will not look the same in two seasons as it does now. Keeping him is a bet on that, not on this September.
The bottom line
For the first time in a year, the noise around Endrick has an answer attached to it. Italian clubs asked; Real Madrid said no; the president, the board and the manager are on the same page; and the player’s representatives have been told. The Endrick transfer story is not that a deal collapsed — it is that Real Madrid never let one start. Follow the last fortnight of the window with our coverage of Mourinho’s build-up to the LaLiga opener.
