Real Madrid have made six signings this summer, rebuilt a defence, changed a manager and still, with the season four days away, José Mourinho wants two more players. He is not going to get them — at least not until somebody else walks out of Valdebebas first. Madrid transfers have effectively been put on hold, and the handbrake was not pulled by choice.
That is the picture painted on Tuesday by Bernabéu Digital, who report that Los Blancos have sharply reduced their activity in the market because there is simply no room left in the squad. Citing Mario Cortegana of The Athletic, the outlet says the club’s message is blunt: for anyone to arrive, someone currently on the books has to leave.
- Why Real Madrid cannot register another signing as things stand
- The two positions Mourinho is still pushing for — and the names being watched
- Why Eduardo Camavinga and Raúl Asencio are the men in the middle of it
- The case for standing still with the squad Mourinho already has
- What history says about Florentino Pérez and the last week of a window
How Madrid transfers ground to a halt
This was supposed to be a summer of decisive action, and for two months it was. Marc Cucurella, Ibrahima Konaté, Bernardo Silva, Denzel Dumfries, Yan Diomande and Carlos Espí all arrived, Endrick came back from his loan spell, and the shape of Mourinho’s rebuild became clear long before the friendlies finished.
Then the flow stopped. Bernabéu Digital describe a rumour mill that has dried up almost completely, with Martín Zubimendi the only senior name still being linked to the club. Their reading, a week out from the opener and with under a fortnight until the window shuts on 31 August, is that the squad now stays as it is.
The reason is administrative rather than financial. Madrid, on Bernabéu Digital’s account, have no spaces left to fill, which is why the club’s stance has hardened into a straight condition rather than a preference. Mourinho, the outlet says, understands the situation perfectly well — and keeps making the point that two more additions would lift the team’s ceiling significantly.
What Mourinho still wants
The Portuguese has been asking for the same two profiles since the day he was appointed. When we covered his original demand for a centre-back and a midfielder in July, it read like an opening bid in a negotiation. In mid-August it still reads like an unmet request.
A left-sided centre-back
According to Bernabéu Digital, relaying Cortegana, the club are monitoring the left-sided centre-back position, with Ayméric Laporte and Alessandro Bastoni named as the favourites. Neither is a new name to Madridistas — Bastoni was reported as Mourinho’s top defensive target earlier this month.
The logic is straightforward enough. Madrid Universal note that Mourinho has Asencio, Antonio Rüdiger, Dean Huijsen, Konaté and Éder Militão to choose from, but that injuries and fitness problems meant he never once worked with the full group across pre-season. A settled back four has been a theory rather than a fact, even if Huijsen and Konaté now look set to start at Espanyol.
A deep-lying midfielder
The second request is for an organiser in front of the defence. Bernabéu Digital list Kees Smit and Zubimendi as the main candidates, either this summer or in a future window. Zubimendi is the complication: the same outlet puts his price at around €90m and calls it excessive, which is roughly where the last round of Zubimendi speculation ended up too — floated, then denied.
A separate Bernabéu Digital piece adds Angello Stiller to the list of options that would not require anything like the same outlay. All of which is a reminder of where this window turned: Madrid’s decision not to push for Rodri left a specific job unfilled, and Mourinho has been trying to fill it ever since.
The Sergio Martínez question
The one live piece of business is at the other end of the price scale, and it is not a first-team fix. Madrid Universal, again citing Cortegana, report that Real Madrid are reluctant to pay the €3m release clause in Sergio Martínez’s Racing Santander contract and are exploring other routes to sign him. The plan, per the report, would be to add the 19-year-old to Castilla rather than the senior squad.
We looked at the €3m clause Real Madrid are watching earlier on Tuesday. The catch has not changed: Martínez has broken into Racing’s first team and scored on his LaLiga debut in a 2-2 draw with Villarreal, so persuading him to drop into the third tier with the reserves is a conversation, not a formality.
The exits that have to happen first
Which brings us to the part nobody at the club particularly wants to discuss on the record. Both Bernabéu Digital and Madrid Universal, working from Cortegana’s reporting, name Eduardo Camavinga and Raúl Asencio as the players who would need to move for the sums and the squad places to work.
Cortegana’s line, as carried by Bernabéu Digital, is worth quoting plainly: “José Mourinho still wants to sign another centre-back and a midfielder, so Real Madrid are monitoring several positions and players. However, there are players who have to leave.” The implication is that certain squad members have been told they will not have a prominent role and are expected to find a destination.
The problem, on Bernabéu Digital’s reading, is that neither is willing to go. That squares with our report that Mourinho would rather lose Asencio than Camavinga, and with the fact that Camavinga has spent pre-season being tried in the double pivot rather than frozen out. None of this is a transfer request; it is a club and a player looking at the same fixture list and reaching different conclusions.
The counter-argument: is standing still actually a problem?
It is worth putting the other case, because it is a decent one. Madrid have spent heavily, added six players across every line, and Mourinho has had a full pre-season to work with a group that is deeper than the one that finished last season empty-handed — the club’s first trophyless campaign since 2020-21.
A squad that cannot register anyone else is, by definition, a squad that is already full. Adding a seventh signing in the last fortnight of a window, into a dressing room still learning a new manager’s habits, is not obviously the route to a better September. And selling Camavinga — a midfielder in his prime who has been used in Mourinho’s preferred double pivot throughout the friendlies — to fund a replacement organiser would be a strange piece of maths.
There is also the small matter of timing. Any centre-back arriving now would be behind Huijsen, Konaté and Rüdiger in a pecking order that has only just settled, with Militão still working back. That is a lot of upheaval for a player who might not start until October.
Florentino Pérez and the late-window ace
And yet. Bernabéu Digital make the point that Florentino Pérez has built a reputation on closing windows with a move nobody saw coming, and suggest this summer could follow the same pattern — most likely in midfield, the area that has generated the most noise all summer.
It is speculation, and the outlet frames it as such: Madrid do not always land a late signing, but a late rumour is close to guaranteed. What makes it more than idle chatter this time is that the club’s own stated position leaves the door ajar. If Camavinga or Asencio change their minds in the final week, Madrid have a shortlist ready and roughly 13 days to use it.
Watch for three things between now and 31 August: any softening from the two named players, any concrete offer arriving for either, and whether Zubimendi’s valuation moves. If none of that happens, Mourinho starts the season with the squad he already has — which, for the record, is a squad most coaches in Europe would take.
What happens next
Real Madrid open LaLiga away to Espanyol at the RCDE Stadium on Saturday 22 August at 21:30 Spanish time, 20:30 in the UK, live in Spain on Orange TV and DAZN, according to Bernabéu Digital. By the time the window shuts nine days later, Madrid will have played twice.
For now the position is exactly as the club has framed it: no one comes in until someone goes out. Mourinho has made his request, the president has made his conditions, and two footballers who fancy their chances of playing are quietly holding the whole thing up. Keep an eye on our coverage of Madrid’s exit list — that is where this window will be decided.
