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Mourinho: Madrid made midfielder ‘a very good offer’Spain captain chose to join Barcelona instead for £65.4mJosé Mourinho has confirmed Real Madrid made Rodri an offer and that he spoke to him about joining the club, but claimed the player’s doubts about the transfer made him unsure about signing Spain’s World Cup-winning captain.On the same day Rodri was presented at Barcelona following the completion of a €75m (£65.4m) move from Manchester City that the midfielder said was “always my first choice”, Mourinho insisted he would not miss the him at the Santiago Bernabéu. “I spoke to him a couple of times and Real Madrid made him a very good offer,” Mourinho said in an interview with El Chiringuito.“Without negotiating with City, the club were in contact with Rodri and made him an important offer. Rodrigo had doubts, he doubted. And his doubts created doubts in me. He is an extraordinary player and he behaved in the right way with us. I have nothing bad to say. But Real Madrid are so big that you can’t have players who have to think twice. You get in touch with a player and the player says: ‘When do I go?’ That’s how it works.”Rodri had three offers to leave City after the World Cup, from Paris Saint-Germain, Real and Barcelona. Having ruled out PSG because he wanted to return to Spain, the 30-year-old eventually chose Barcelona, where he will join eight of his international teammates. When it was put to Mourinho that the move could be seen as a victory for Barcelona over their great rivals, he replied: “Victories are on the pitch, trophies”.Real have not signed an alternative midfielder, despite their pursuit of Rodri and that being a clear hole in a team that has failed to win a major trophy in the past two seasons. Mourinho feels sure, however, that he does not need to bring in any further players. “I am not saying that there will not be any more signings because the market is still open, but if you ask me directly whether the squad is complete, for me yes it is,” said the 63-year-old ahead of his second stint managing in Madrid. “It’s complete, closed. I like [my squad] a lot.“I don’t miss Rodrigo. We have solutions, we have quality, we have players who maybe you look at and you judge them on what they have done [before] but I like to think that I have the ability to improve players. A player that is one thing today can be a different player tomorrow.”

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Director Joe Pearlman says he expected Real Madrid manager to ‘try to manipulate us’ in making of Netflix seriesEven in the hyperreal world of football, there are few characters more compelling, more polarising, or more everything than José Mourinho, the best and worst of public him on full display in a new three-part Netflix series. “It reminded me how good he was,” says Joe Pearlman, who directed Mourinho, and the actual Mourinho is, believe it or not, keen to communicate the same. As he puts it in the show: “I look, you look, I see more than you.”Making documentaries, though, is often about taking people to the places they’re most skilled at avoiding. “I knew the interviews were going to be very intense,” says Pearlman, “and he was going to try and control the narrative and manipulate us. Everything bad is everyone else’s fault and everything he’s done is validated by winning. Because that’s all that’s important.”This is just one aspect of an unusual worldview. “There’s a moment in episode three where I ask him about his childhood,” says Pearlman, “and he doesn’t want to talk about it because he doesn’t think it’s relevant to who he is, essentially saying he’s not interested in people. Which, for one of the greatest man-managers of all time, is quite odd.”The son of a much-loved coach, Mourinho felt like an outsider from childhood because he was known by way of his dad. Then, when he became a coach himself, having not been a player, that appeared to confer insider privilege. Indisputably, this self-image has helped Mourinho self-actualise, surviving unlimited wealth at Chelsea and a spell at Real Madrid, with the attitude of “someone who’s had a chip on their shoulder for a lot of their life” – along, of course, with his irrepressible charisma and tactical acumen.Félix Mourinho died in June 2017 and, when that comes up in the documentary, there are tears. “He’s obviously buried the loss of his father,” Pearlman says. “It’s very painful for him to talk about. As someone who’s lost a parent, I can talk about my mum very openly because I’ve processed it. I’ve been to therapy, I’ve tried to understand what that part of my life means. I don’t think José’s ever tried to understand what any part of his life means. I think he’s always looking forward, always looking for the next thing. He’s winning the treble for Inter against Louis van Gaal and Bayern but, at the same time, he’s really thinking about crushing Pep [Guardiola] when he joins Madrid.“Losing his father changed him; it tainted the years that came afterwards. And on top of that, José carries every word, every goal, every decision that doesn’t go his way; it’s a rucksack of pain he’s been lugging around since he was probably 19, 20 years old.”Nevertheless, everything that makes Mourinho special – the wit, the insight, the confidence, the zest, the charm, the genius, the cool – burns through the screen. “He was looking for an outlet to be the biggest possible version of himself and football allowed that,” says Pearlman. “The ego and the charisma on top of the talent meant he could embody a character he’d always dreamt of being, that maybe he wasn’t in his childhood, and that is the person that we’ve come to know as José Mourinho.”That person is, of course, only one version of reality, a character honed for the purpose of footballing warfare. One who, it seems, sees football as distinct from the real world, with combatants permitted to do anything in the pursuit of victory; he is no more apologetic for his Anders Frisk and Eva Carneiro excesses now than at the time. Yet Mourinho also articulates his desire to be loved, though you sometimes wonder if, to him, that has as much in common with adulation as affection. “It can also be: ‘I want to have a lot of attention on me’,” says Pearlman, “and conflict brings that in spades. It’s like this safety blanket that allows him to feel like he’s doing things for a righteous cause.”At home Mourinho is different: more reserved, quieter. And it is with regard to his home life that we experience the show’s other sad moment: Mourinho explaining he’s been away from his family a lot, so much so that it’s easier for them when he’s not around. “You can kind of hear it in my voice,” says Pearlman. “I’m like: ‘Oh my god, what does it even feel like saying that?’”What does Pearlman think the show is about? “A lot of it is about winning at all costs,” he replies, “and what happens when you’re defined by winning and that winning stops. It’s also the portrait of a hero and a villain, one of the great leaders of men that the world has ever seen. As a civilisation, we’re lucky Mourinho didn’t go into politics!”And, of course, the show now has a surprise happy ending, with Mourinho’s return to Madrid. “The person I’ve seen over the last few years at Roma, Benfica … until this last one, I don’t think I could say that I’ve met a happy man or a content person,” says Pearlman. “He is now where he believes he should always have been – after every cup Madrid have won since he left, Florentino Pérez has called to say: ‘This is because of you,’ because of how he modernised the club. And one thing we all know is that whatever comes next, it’s going to be a box-office blockbuster.”

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Florentino Pérez pressed the Special One button again after two straight trophyless seasons at Real, but Lamine Yamal and co remain title favouritesA lot has changed since José Mourinho was last appointed Real Madrid manager, but a lot has also not changed. Before his first game in charge in 2010, Spain had just become world champions, their extra-time winner in the final scored by a Barcelona player after their opponents, who had been reduced to 10 men, had tried to kick them off the park. Like then, Mourinho’s task is to take down a Barcelona team that have won two La Liga titles in succession. And like then, he has a host of world-class talent at his disposal.Florentino Pérez is also still around – and he is largely the reason why Mourinho is back. After the chief executive, José Ángel Sánchez, was said to have led the charge to appoint Xabi Alonso last summer, the 79-year-old club president has made the decision his own this time. He promised Mourinho, who won La Liga with 100 points in his first spell, would return if he was re-elected in snap elections in June and the announcement came, in true Pérez style, on the opening day of the World Cup.Jorge Valdano, the former Madrid player and manager who worked upstairs during Mourinho’s first tenure, was of the opinion that a lot has indeed changed since then. “Almost 15 years have passed: football is no longer the same, society is not the same, Florentino is no longer the same, and Mourinho certainly won’t be either,” he told A Bola.But Mourinho was the outstanding law-and-order candidate. Even after Alonso’s sacking last January, Madrid’s season continued its descent into chaos under Álvaro Arbeloa. In May, Federico Valverde was taken to hospital for stitches after a bust-up with his teammate Aurélien Tchouaméni. A few days later, Madrid conceded the league title in the clásico and would finish the campaign trophyless. By then an online petition calling for Kylian Mbappé to leave had reached 30 million signatures. Speculation about the future of Vinícius Júnior, who had 12 months left on his contract, would not go away.Not everything has gone right since – a £129m bid for Julián Álvarez was turned down by Atlético Madrid, while Barcelona look more likely to sign Rodri from Manchester City – but Madrid’s preparations for the new campaign have exuded an air of calm. Mourinho began work a month before his contract started and has not had an official unveiling in front of the media. “It’s not about working at Real Madrid, it is working for Real Madrid,” he said sternly in a short in-house interview at the start of pre-season. The soundbites are limited to his new Netflix documentary. There has been no globetrotting summer tour either; just a series of low-key friendlies across Europe.Perhaps most importantly, after all that Arsenal talk, Vinícius has signed a new six-year deal. “Vinícius has become one of the most important players in one of the most successful periods in our history,” the club said. Mourinho will have to find a system that gets the best out of him, Mbappé and Jude Bellingham, not to mention a new galáctico, the £115m winger Yan Diomandé, who was playing across town for Leganés B in Spain’s fifth tier only last year.Diomandé made his Leganés first-team debut at the Bernabéu in March 2025. “Who makes their debut at 18 against Real Madrid? It was a dream. And then it was a nightmare,” Diomandé wrote in the Players’ Tribune this summer, while he was shining for Côte d’Ivoire at the World Cup, in a raw and emotional article dedicated to his sister Roxane, who died aged 15 after her drink was spiked at a party, just weeks after her brother’s La Liga debut.Supporting Diomandé and Vinícius down the left wing will be Marc Cucurella who, along with Bernardo Silva, Ibrahima Konaté, Denzel Dumfries and the 6ft 4in striker Carlos Espí, are all signings that should adapt easily to Mourinho’s coaching. But of all the star quality on the pitch, it is the Portuguese coach who will attract the most attention.By landing the Real Madrid job again, Mourinho has staged a comeback few expected after his later struggles in the Premier League and a tour of Europe that delivered mixed results. His orchestrating of Benfica’s remarkable Champions League escape against Madrid last season, with the goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin’s late goal, thrust him back into the spotlight. But his disappointing comments after Vinícius accused Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni of racist abuse – Prestianni was ultimately banned by Uefa for “homophobic conduct” – were criticised by Kick It Out as “a form of gaslighting”. “Mourinho is Mourinho,” said Arbeloa.After returning for pre-season, Vinícius said: “It has gone very well, getting to know the new coach … Mourinho wants me to be as I have always been: happy, cheerful and playing my football.” There has been no suggestion of any lingering bad blood.It is not only Mourinho who is returning to La Liga after a lengthy absence. Racing Santander are back for the first time since 2012 and have welcomed back one of their own in Sergio Canales, now 35, who left aged 19 to join Mourinho’s Real Madrid in that summer of 2010. “I’m still struggling to believe this is real,” the midfielder said last month. Deportivo and Málaga also return to La Liga for the first time since 2018 having both dropped to the third tier in that time. Depor’s marquee signing has been a 37-year-old Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.Diego Simeone, beginning his 15th full season in charge of Atlético, reunites with Mourinho in the dugout for the Madrid derby. Atlético have started life after Antoine Griezmann with investment in their squad that has included signing Lee Kang-in from Paris Saint-Germain and giving him Griezmann’s No 7 shirt. Manuel Pellegrini, Mourinho’s predecessor in his first spell at the Bernabéu, remains in charge of Real Betis while Villarreal, the other of Spain’s five clubs in the Champions League this season, have appointed Iñigo Pérez after his feats at Rayo Vallecano.Pellegrino Matarazzo, the American in charge of Real Sociedad, will be looking to build on the club’s Copa del Rey triumph in April. The other hotseat in the Basque Country, at Athletic Club, is occupied by a German for the first time since Jupp Heynckes in 2003. “Athletic is the only club where a handshake is more important than a signature,” Heynckes told the new man, Edin Terzic, before he took the job.It is Barcelona, though, who remain favourites for the title. Like Griezmann, Robert Lewandowski has departed for Major League Soccer in the US, and there is still a gap up front while Atlético stand firm on Álvarez. Anthony Gordon has replaced Marcus Rashford to fight for a place with the injury-prone Raphinha on the left wing, but, with respect to Karim Adeyemi, there is no real competition on the other flank. Lamine Yamal did not take the World Cup by storm as many expected but he has returned from America as a world champion and, let’s remember, a 19-year-old. He will probably be the ringleader once more if Hansi Flick is to match Pep Guardiola’s achievement of three successive league titles. The first clásico is at the Camp Nou at the end of October.Unlike Europe’s other major leagues, La Liga is staggering the start of its new season. Owing to their players’ involvement in the later stages of the extended World Cup, none of Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético are in action on the opening weekend. The league’s president, Javier Tebas, is one of Gianni Infantino’s loudest critics and said on Sunday that the Fifa president’s projects are “destroying” the national leagues. All this means José Bordalás’s Getafe, soon embarking on a European campaign, will raise the curtain at Quique Sánchez Flores’s Alavés on Saturday evening – what more could you ask for?