The last person you expect to sound this cheerful is José Mourinho. Three months into his second Real Madrid stint, and days from his opening La Liga fixture, the Portuguese manager sat down with Spanish television and dropped his guard just enough to admit that one of his own players is making him laugh in training.
The player is Kylian Mbappé. The quote, delivered to El Chiringuito on Wednesday night, was pure delight from a coach whose public register runs from acid to icy.
“He’s incredible. He makes me laugh in training because he’s too good. His level is stratospheric.”
For a manager who has built a career on calculation, provocation and cold fury on the touchline, that is an unusual thing to say. Mourinho does not tend to gush about his own players. He picks fights with rivals, doles out compliments sparingly, and treats warmth in interviews as a tactical choice.
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The two days that unlocked it
The 27-year-old France forward could have reported for preseason on 14 August. He turned up on the 12th, cutting his post-holiday break to be ready sooner. That is what Mourinho went out of his way to note.
“It’s this commitment that I want. A guy who could have resumed training on August 14 and who presented himself on the 12th,” Mourinho said.
He added that the striker had cited a specific reason for turning up early: he wanted to be ready for the preseason match against Schalke.
Vintage Mourinho on Rodri and Negreira
On the Spain midfielder Rodri, who chose Barcelona over the Bernabéu, Mourinho told El Chiringuito’s Josep Pedrerol that his own doubts had followed the player’s.
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“Rodri had doubts, he hesitated, and Rodri’s doubts made me doubt too.”
He also revived one of the Spanish game’s older controversies, saying that during his previous Madrid spell he “smelt something” in relation to the Negreira refereeing affair at Barcelona.
Both were vintage Mourinho. The laugh line was not. Real Madrid open the season this weekend away at Espanyol, and a coach in an unusually good mood is the surprise.
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