José Mourinho has confirmed that he personally blocked Endrick from leaving Real Madrid this summer, telling reporters on Tuesday that the Brazilian had fielded a long list of enquiries and that he refused every one of them because he wants to work with the forward himself.
The Real Madrid manager was speaking at his second press conference of the season, on the eve of Real Sociedad’s visit to the Santiago Bernabéu, and the Endrick question was always coming: the number 9 has been left out of the squad again with the muscular problem that flared at the end of pre-season. As Bernabéu Digital report, Mourinho used the answer to make his position on the player unmistakable.
What Mourinho Said About Endrick
His words, translated from the Spanish: “I like Endrick a lot. He has had so many, so many, so many contacts from clubs who were interested in him. I didn’t want to sell him because I want to work with him. He has serious talent.”
That is about as close to a public guarantee as a manager gives in the last week of a transfer window. Mourinho was not asked whether Endrick was for sale; he volunteered that clubs had come and that he was the one who said no.
A Year And A Half On The Bench, Then Lyon
The context matters, because Endrick’s Real Madrid career has been mostly spent waiting. He had a season and a half largely tied to the bench in Madrid before a short and productive loan at Olympique Lyonnais, and he came back this July with visibly more standing inside the dressing room. Bernabéu Digital’s read is that Mourinho has now handed him a place in the plan.
What he has not been handed is minutes. The muscle trouble that surfaced in the closing stretch of pre-season ruled him out of the Bernabéu opener, and when the squad list for Real Sociedad was published on Tuesday afternoon his name was absent alongside Aurélien Tchouaméni’s. For a forward who became the youngest man to wear Real Madrid’s number 9 since 1970, it is a frustrating way to start a season in which he finally has the manager’s backing.
“For Me, The Squad Is Closed”
The Endrick answer sat inside a wider message. At the same press conference, carried by Managing Madrid, Mourinho was asked about further business before the window shuts and replied: “For me, the squad is closed. The window is open, so you can never say never, there could be an opportunity, a player asks to leave, an offer too good to turn down, but I would be most happy to keep the squad as it is.”
Read the two answers together and the Endrick line stops being a compliment and starts being policy. Mourinho has a forward line of Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior, Carlos Espí and the newly presented Yan Diomande, and he still wants a fifth attacking option he has never been able to field. That is a manager building depth on purpose rather than trimming a squad for the accountants.
It also lands on the same day Mourinho set out what he expects from the group day to day. Spanish outlet AS, via Bernabéu Digital, reported that the Portuguese is imposing a culture built on daily discipline, order and collective solidarity, that he wants to convince with the football as well as win, and that the fitness gap between players who have trained all summer and those who have not is his most immediate problem. Endrick, for now, is firmly in the second group.
Mourinho takes charge at the Santiago Bernabéu for the first time in his second spell on Wednesday night, and his new number 9 will watch it. On the evidence of Tuesday, he will not be watching for much longer.
