Sixteen years ago the Santiago Bernabéu filled up on a summer afternoon to watch a Portuguese man in a dark suit hold a scarf above his head. That was the first José Mourinho presentation, in 2010, and it remains one of the great set-pieces of modern Real Madrid theatre. The second one, it turns out, is not going to happen at all.
According to MARCA, Real Madrid have decided to scrap the traditional unveiling entirely this summer — no stage at the Bernabéu, no scarf, no press conference — for Mourinho and for all six of their new signings. In its place: private, institutional welcomes at which club president Florentino Pérez will greet each arrival personally, with families present and no media in the room. The club, per the report, describes them as “simple and family-oriented events”.
What the new Mourinho presentation looks like
The change is genuinely radical by Madrid’s standards. As Madrid Universal report, relaying MARCA, six players are waiting to be formally welcomed: Marc Cucurella, Ibrahima Konaté, Bernardo Silva, Denzel Dumfries, Carlos Espí and Yan Diomande. Under the old model, each would have had a turn on the pitch and then a turn in front of the microphones. Under the new one, none of them will hold a press conference, and neither will their manager.
Managing Madrid, also citing MARCA, frames the reasoning plainly: the coaching staff and the board want the focus on Saturday’s opener at Espanyol, and both the players and Mourinho himself are being spared the media attention that an introductory press conference inevitably generates. Given how much of Mourinho’s first spell was conducted through press-room microphones, there is something almost wry about the club deciding his return does not need one.
It starts this week
Bernabéu Digital, citing journalist Melchor Ruiz, report that the ceremonies begin on Tuesday, and that the first to be received may not be a player at all — it could be Mourinho. Nothing has been officially confirmed, including how many events there will be or when each falls, but the window is obvious: the squad returned to training on Tuesday after a day off, and the season starts on Saturday 22 August at Espanyol. Everything has to fit inside that week.
It is also, in fairness, a practical solution to a problem Madrid created for themselves. The signings arrived across a summer in which the squad was travelling, and the club never found a moment for the pageantry. Diomande, Konaté and Cucurella have already trained, played and in Espí’s case scored in a Real Madrid shirt before being officially presented in it. Cucurella has already been booed by opposition supporters on his debut. The ceremony was starting to look like an afterthought, so Madrid have quietly turned it into one.
What Madridistas lose — and gain
There is a cost. The Bernabéu unveiling is one of the few days in the calendar that belongs to supporters rather than results: thousands of people turning up in the middle of August to see a man juggle a ball badly and say the right things about the shirt. Six of those, plus Mourinho’s homecoming, is a lot of goodwill to leave on the table in a summer following a trophyless season.
The gain is a manager who does not have to answer for 2013 before he has taken charge of a competitive match, and a group of players whose first public words are not scrutinised for three days. It fits what we already know about this Mourinho: double sessions, maximum demand, and very little noise. Florentino Pérez shaking hands in a private room instead of a full stadium is, in its own way, entirely on message.
The scarf can wait. Saturday cannot.
