Jose Mourinho answered the Vinicius Junior questions on Saturday by asking one of his own.
“I want to ask you a question that is even funny,” the Real Madrid manager told the room at the club’s Valdebebas training ground ahead of the Sevilla match. “Do the people who follow you have curiosity about what time he arrives at Valdebebas? And about when he leaves too?”
The target was clear. Spanish outlets have camped outside Valdebebas to log every arrival and departure of a player who, under his four-match La Liga ban, cannot line up for Real Madrid in the league for four league rounds. The Brazilian was suspended for pulling an opponent’s hair and protesting the referee, and Mourinho’s sarcasm over the length of the punishment ran through the same press conference.
“As for the four-match ban, I’m actually quite pleased. I thought they were going to give him even more.”
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‘Shamelessly,’ two hours out
The humor sat on top of a sharper complaint Mourinho had opened three nights earlier, around Real Madrid’s 4-3 Champions League comeback at Roma. La Liga’s disciplinary notice had landed roughly two hours before that kick-off, and the Portuguese did not hide what he thought of the timing.
“They do things shamelessly now,” he said.
“Do you think it’s normal that a player from a Spanish team … that two hours before the match a player knows he’s been given a four-match suspension?”
He called the timing “at the very least, a lack of respect” and asked why the ruling could not have waited until the next morning.
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The Clasico among the matches he will miss
Real Madrid routed Sevilla 4-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu on Sunday without their suspended forward, with Kylian Mbappe scoring twice including a Panenka penalty. The ban also keeps Vinicius Junior out against Barcelona, Racing Santander and Valencia, meaning he will sit out the away Clasico. Because the suspension is domestic only, he remains available for Real Madrid’s Champions League tie in midweek.
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