Mourinho surprises everyone after Real Madrid's first defeat: "My players are very naive"

Real Madrid were defeated by Sevilla's Betis in their first defeat of the season, but José Mourinho did not raise his voice or point the finger at his players, on the contrary. He chose the path he knows best: to shift the focus of the narrative to other external aspects. The 1-0 defeat at La Cartuja thus became the right occasion to talk about something else, such as the "intelligence" of the opponent and the "purity" of his team: the words "naive" and "gordo", used carefully in the post-match statements, are not just adjectives: they are the heart of a communication strategy of the Special One, which for years has allowed him to defend his teams by highlighting the merits of the opponent and the shortcomings of the circumstances. Hiding a clear message for his own ahead of their Champions League debut, when Inter will appear at the Bernabeu on Wednesday.

Mourinho and his "naive" Real Madrid 

In the post-match press conference, Mourinho avoided giving specific answers about his players' performance, although he stressed that Real deserved it more than Betis, shifting the focus to other elements: "Betis players are clearly smarter than Real Madrid's. Real's players are pure, they are naive."

A clear reference to the "forced" substitution of Arda Güler, author of a good performance but punished with a yellow card: "In the first action of the game there is a clear yellow card for a player who hit Valverde. Then a minute later another yellow card for a significant foul on Vinicius... but the Madrid players get up immediately and the Betis ones are more... intelligent and, of course, with the support of a fantastic public, achieve these kinds of results".

The "naive" used by Mourinho is transformed from a possible accusation against his players into an indirect compliment to the purity of Real Madrid and, at the same time, to emphasize that the match was decided on a terrain that is not only technical. The anger of the technician Mourinho for the defeat, which exists, is as "smart" as that of the opposing players: he does not explode publicly against Mbappé or against the one who made a mistake, but penetrates between the lines, showing where the attention should go.

Mourinho's bitterness: "Deserving doesn't give you points"

The next part of the post-match statements is once again one of the greatest classics of the Portuguese's communication: Mourinho acknowledges Madrid's dominance, the chances created, the "imperial" centre-backs, the absolute control, to then reach the linguistic surprise: "I only have to compliment Betis, who played for the equaliser and came out 'gordo'". "Gordo" in this specific case is synonymous with "big shot", the prize won in the lottery of luck, and turns the defeat into an almost accidental fact. Real Madrid deserved to win, repeated Mou, but "deserving doesn't give you points. I don't know why we lost. I can't justify it, because collectively we played very well. I have nothing to reproach any player with".

Mourinho and the hidden anger on the eve of Inter

Anyone who knows the Special One knows the mechanism he uses when faced with a result he doesn't like: he rarely focuses on his team's mistakes, preferring to build a narrative where the team did almost everything well and where circumstances weighed more. La Cartuja's statements fit perfectly into this scheme: Real Madrid "naive" and pure, Betis more cunning, "smart", who caught the reward, the prize of the one who played not to lose.

Of course, this is not a total innocence and Mourinho himself knows it very well, but it is a way to protect the group, to keep up internal morale at an already delicate seasonal moment: on Wednesday evening Inter comes to the Bernabeu for the Champions League, a challenge not at all usual for the Portuguese. And the message for Real is now clear: to be more "intelligent" and less "naive".