José Mourinho Praises Tchouameni and Valverde's Reconciliation at Real Madrid

José Mourinho insists he has not needed to play peacemaker between Aurélien Tchouameni and Federico Valverde – and, judging by the mood around Real Madrid, he sounds almost proud of that.

The pair spent the end of last season under an unforgiving spotlight after two altercations in May, one serious enough to leave Valverde in hospital with a head injury. Their relationship became a story of its own, a subplot threatening to overshadow Madrid’s run-in.

Then the summer changed everything.

Tchouameni signed a new contract. Valverde took the captain’s armband after Dani Carvajal’s departure. The dressing room dynamic, once tense, now feels transformed.

“Look, I haven't done anything. They've done everything themselves,” Mourinho said before Madrid’s meeting with Rayo Vallecano, making a point of stepping out of the limelight. He painted a picture of a squad that polices itself. “The empathy within the group today, the friendship, the way they work together, the frustration when they go off because nobody wants to be substituted, but still supporting their teammates, the player who comes on in the final minute… the group is fantastic.”

The evidence has already been on the pitch. In Madrid’s Champions League win over Inter Milan, Tchouameni finally returned to club duty after the World Cup, making his first appearance of the season. He came on late, replacing Trent Alexander-Arnold, and when the final whistle went, the cameras caught what the club had been craving: Tchouameni and Valverde embracing, no trace of the storm that raged in May.

Mourinho admitted he had been ready to intervene if the World Cup had reopened old wounds. It never came to that.

“If I knew nothing, if I walked into the dressing room without knowing anything about the situation, I'd think they were great friends,” he said. “When they came back from the World Cup, I was obviously paying attention to see whether I needed to act as a peacekeeper, but I didn't have to do anything.”

The truce in midfield gives Mourinho one less fire to fight. Another, though, keeps burning around Vinicius Jr.

The Brazilian ended a long, noisy summer by signing a new contract through 2032, a deal that underlined his status as one of the club’s pillars. His start to the season has been subdued: one goal in five games across all competitions, numbers that barely resemble the player who has so often ripped games away from opponents.

Mourinho, though, is not blinking.

“The best Vinicius is coming soon,” he promised. “The one from last year, when the Bernabeu was terrified against Benfica and he ended up winning the tie. The Vinicius who won matches single-handedly hasn't arrived yet. But he will.”

He anchored that belief not in nostalgia but in data – the very language often used to question players when goals dry up.

“In an era of data and statistics, he's very close to his top speed,” Mourinho argued. “He's broken his records for high-intensity sprints, records for ball recoveries, for ball recoveries in the final third... He's coming.”

The numbers, in Mourinho’s eyes, tell the story of a player physically primed, even if the final touch and the decisive finish have not yet fallen into place. That gap between performance and perception is where the criticism has flooded in, especially from sections of the Spanish media.

On that subject, the coach’s tone hardened.

The former Chelsea and Manchester United manager bristled at the treatment of a forward who has already stacked his Madrid career with trophies: three La Liga titles, two Champions Leagues, two FIFA Club World Cups, and a long list of individual highlights. For Mourinho, the scrutiny is not a sign of decline, but of status.

To make his point, he reached for a proverb from home.

“In Portugal there's a proverb, I don't know if it's the same in Spain, ‘you only throw stones at trees that bear fruit,’” he said. “What has Vini done here in recent years? How many Champions Leagues has he won? How many goals has he scored? He's a tree with plenty of fruit. And people throw stones because they want fruit.”

Madrid head into the clash with Rayo Vallecano with a reconciled midfield, a captain once at the heart of a feud, and a star forward Mourinho insists is about to burst back into full colour. The stones, it seems, will keep coming. The question now is how much more fruit this tree can still bear.