Bernardo Silva was reported as Mourinho’s first personal request when the Portuguese coach agreed to return to Real Madrid. Mourinho himself gave a rather different account this week.
“I think he’s Pep Guardiola’s player. He contributes everything,” he told Josep Pedrerol on El Chiringuito.
The line came from an interview broadcast by El Chiringuito across Tuesday and Wednesday evening, Mourinho’s first sit-down since being named Real Madrid head coach on 11 June on a three-year contract running to June 2029.
‘I haven’t asked for anyone’
The recurring line through the transfer questions was a flat denial of authorship.
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“I haven’t asked for anyone,” Mourinho said.
He arrived at Valdebebas, he insisted, without a shopping list, and preferred to analyze the squad before saying “yes, I want him” when specific names were put in front of him.
The most expensive of those names was Yan Diomande. The 19-year-old Ivory Coast winger joined from RB Leipzig on 6 August on a seven-year contract, for a reported fee of up to €140m including bonuses.
Mourinho placed himself firmly on the “yes” side of that decision rather than the “ask” side.
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“Did I ask for Yan Diomande’s signing? No, I did not ask, but I wanted,” he said.
He described the profile he had in mind as a fast, aggressive one-on-one winger comfortable on both flanks, and admitted the search “is not easy.”
Bernardo Silva and the Guler project
Bernardo Silva himself arrived on a free transfer from Manchester City, signing a two-year deal on 17 June. Mourinho’s affection for the 31-year-old ran through the tactical detail rather than the paperwork.
“It was my conviction that Bernardo is Real Madrid level,” he said, describing his compatriot as a midfielder who “can play as an attacking midfielder, on the right wing, anywhere.”
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The interview’s other central character was Arda Guler, the existing Real Madrid playmaker whose role under Mourinho has been one of the summer’s most debated internal questions.
Mourinho projected a slow migration down the pitch, invoking Luka Modric.
“I love him, and something similar to what happened with Luka will happen to him: you start as a ’10’, attacking, and in the end you’ll finish as an ‘8’ or a ‘6’,” he told Pedrerol.
A nod across the Clasico line
Mourinho’s warmest words of the night crossed the Clasico divide.
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Asked about Hansi Flick’s Barcelona, he said: “I like it, very good work. Flick, Deco and obviously the players. I like it.”
He was cooler on the idea of Lamine Yamal ever crossing that divide, telling El Chiringuito that the teenager was “a great player without doubt” but that his current squad left no space.
“I wouldn’t make room for anyone at this moment,” Mourinho said.
His second spell in charge of Real Madrid begins at Espanyol at the weekend, with the club’s delayed opening-round LaLiga fixture against Real Sociedad rescheduled to the Bernabeu the following week for the players who were released late from the World Cup.
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