Tomas Ryde

🚨🎙️ José Mourinho on his heated altercation with Kylian Mbappé after Real Madrid’s 3-2 win over AEK Athens: 🎙️ Reporter: “We saw a heated moment between you and Mbappé after the game, despite him scoring tonight. What exactly happened?” 🗣️ José Mourinho: “Absolutely, I won’t pretend I wasn’t angry. First of all, I’m happy Kylian scored. He’s a fantastic player, and his goals are important to this team. But scoring doesn’t give you the right to dictate what I should or shouldn’t do as a manager. After the game, he approached me looking frustrated and said, ‘Mister, you almost cost us this game. Why did Vini Júnior have to start?’ I honestly couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He started questioning my decisions, explaining how well we had been playing with Arda Güler and Diomande together. He said the team had developed a good rhythm, everybody understood their responsibilities, and suddenly I was changing everything just because another player had returned. His argument was that I had benched Güler and changed Diomande’s position simply to accommodate Vinícius. That was where I lost my patience. I told him, ‘Listen, it’s not your responsibility to decide who starts and who doesn’t. You’re a player, and I’m the manager. If I decide Vini starts, your responsibility is to support him, not make him feel like he’s competing against his own teammates. ‘You can disagree with my tactical decisions, but you come to me respectfully. You don’t walk around behaving as though you’re bigger than everybody else.’ 🎙️ Reporter: “Do you think Mbappé has forgotten his position because of his status in world football?” 🗣️ José Mourinho: “Look, Kylian is one of the best players in the world. Nobody questions his quality, but football history is full of incredibly talented players who found themselves in difficult situations because of ego and disagreements with authority. Your reputation doesn’t make you untouchable. I’m José Mourinho. I don’t care whether you’re Mbappé, Vinícius, Bellingham or anybody else. If I have to rebuild this team with young players like Endrick and Espi, I’ll do it. Nobody is guaranteed a starting position because of the name on their shirt. And I want people to understand something about Vini. Yes, he hasn’t been at his best recently, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But it’s my responsibility to help him get back to his level. I see his commitment in training, I see his willingness to improve, and that’s enough reason for me to continue believing in him. You cannot demand respect from your teammates while refusing to give them the same respect. 🎙️ Reporter: “Have you managed to resolve the situation with Mbappé? Has he apologised?” 🗣️ José Mourinho: “We’ve spoken, and I believe everything is fine now. I’m not interested in turning one disagreement into a problem that lasts for weeks. We’re professionals, and we have an important season ahead. But I made something very clear to him: if he tries something like that again, he’ll have to understand the other side of me. I’m a coach who can laugh with his players, joke with them and accept disagreements. I want them to feel comfortable around me. But there’s a difference between being comfortable and being disrespectful. I don’t care about your name, salary, reputation or how many trophies you’ve won. You respect the dressing room, your teammates and the manager. I can forgive a bad performance, a missed opportunity or even disagreement with my tactics. But disrespect? No. Not in my dressing room, and certainly not at Real Madrid.”