El Chiringuito relaunched this week with the interview every football show in Spain wanted, and José Mourinho has spent the hours since filling headlines with it. The line that has travelled furthest is not about Real Madrid at all. Asked by Josep Pedrerol whether he would like to have Barcelona’s best player in his squad, the Real Madrid head coach did not pause for breath. “I wouldn’t sign him,” he said of Lamine Yamal — and then used the rest of the answer to explain why that is a compliment to his own dressing room rather than a slight on a teenager. The exchange was reported by Bernabéu Digital.
It is a very Mourinho piece of theatre: praise the rival, then quietly close the door. But it lands two days before his first competitive match of his second spell, delivered by a manager who has spent all summer being asked which player Los Blancos still need. His answer, in effect, was nobody.
What Mourinho actually said about Lamine Yamal
The full reply, translated from the Spanish, was more generous than the headline suggests. “I wouldn’t sign him,” Mourinho said. “He is a great player. He is young and he has an incredible margin for improvement. It is not normal to be a European and world champion at that age. But we have a top squad.”
Pressed on whether he would find room for a player of that level, he went further: “I wouldn’t make space for anyone. Mine are the best.”
He had opened the Barcelona section of the interview with something close to admiration. Asked whether he liked the way they play, Mourinho replied: “They have done very good work. Flick, Deco and obviously the players.” Softer in tone than the Mourinho of the first spell, then, but the instinct underneath is unchanged.
Why “mine are the best” is a message to his own squad
Strip away the Clásico framing and this is a manager drawing a line under his own transfer window. Real Madrid have moved quickly this summer: Marc Cucurella and Denzel Dumfries have arrived to reshape the full-back positions, Ibrahima Konaté and Bernardo Silva have come in on free transfers, Yan Diomande has been signed as the marquee attacking addition, and Endrick is back from loan. Mourinho already has Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior, Rodrygo, Arda Güler and Franco Mastantuono in the forward areas. There is no obvious vacancy for a right-sided attacker, and he was never going to pretend otherwise.
It also fits the logic he applied to the one signing Madrid did chase and lose. Explaining the collapse of the Rodri pursuit in the same interview, Mourinho said Madrid are “so big that you can’t have players who have to think twice”, and that the midfielder’s hesitation created hesitation in him — a story we covered in full in Mourinho’s explanation of the Rodri collapse. Wanting to be here is the entry requirement. Saying he would not clear a shirt for Barcelona’s best young player is the same idea worn as a badge.
One interview, a week of headlines
The Pedrerol sit-down has been the most productive piece of media Madrid have done all summer. It produced Mourinho’s account of why he took the job at all — “I was thinking about staying at Benfica. But when Real Madrid called, the answer was easy, you always answer Madrid. Coming back here means a lot,” he told the programme — as well as his verdict on the Rodri saga and contentious answers on the Negreira case that we are content to leave with the courts. You can read our earlier write-up of the interview’s Real Madrid material here.
The culés will file it under provocation, and they are not entirely wrong. Madridistas will note that a coach who rates his own squad above the champions’ best player has committed to backing that up. The first instalment comes on Saturday night against Espanyol rather than Barcelona — here are the kick-off time and TV details for Espanyol vs Real Madrid. The Clásico, and the argument about Lamine Yamal, can wait its turn.
