Are there spies among you? Mourinho tests Real Madrid's players
The veteran coach tries to draw on the lessons of his first term
José Mourinho set Real Madrid's players an early test ahead of Saturday evening's second-round La Liga clash with Espanyol. The Portuguese coach told his squad the starting line-up he would field, then revealed as much publicly to the media, gauging how well the dressing room can keep a secret within Valdebebas.
Mourinho said sarcastically: "The first line-up is mine... let's see which of you (journalists) has the best contacts," before adding: "The players already know who will play, my job is not to hide things. Perhaps within two hours the information will reach you."
Read also
Official statement: Argentina brandishes the "last resort" in the face of FIFA sanctions
Earthquake in the world of football: UEFA and CONCACAF explore organising a joint tournament
He delivered the line with a smile, but the message ran deeper than a joke at the journalists' expense. Mourinho seems to have decided to probe his dressing room from day one. He gave the players the line-up, announced that they knew it, then left the door open for it to leak, according to "Marca".
The test wasn't just about who starts against Espanyol. It was about how quickly the information would slip out of the squad, and whether it would slip out at all.
Mourinho opened the game himself and laid the bait. Then he waited for the dressing room to react. The players knew the line-up. The only question left: how long before it reached the outside world?
A previous experience with leaks
He knows just how sensitive this issue is. During his first spell at Real Madrid between 2010 and 2013, leaks from within the squad became one of the biggest headaches for his coaching staff.
Line-ups and snippets of dressing-room conversations kept turning up in the media back then, fuelling suspicion that someone inside Valdebebas was talking.
Rui Faria, Mourinho's assistant at the time, addressed the matter: "We knew who the spy was, we were almost certain. Because the answers were ultimately there in the newspapers. You can't prove it, but you're almost certain of how things went."
Marcelo, who lived through that period inside the dressing room, added: "Even now, we want to know who that wretched person who spilled the secret was."
An early test
Mourinho doesn't treat leaks as trivial detail, not after feeling their impact during his first spell at the club. They can erode trust within the dressing room, breed doubt between players and staff and feed internal conflict, according to "Marca".
Thirteen years on, the Portuguese has decided to run the test himself from the very start, drawing on that experience. He has stressed that he returned to Madrid with a different mindset, keen to get to know the group and work with it before forming any judgements.
Here's the striking part. The line-up Mourinho said his players already knew had not leaked to the media by Saturday evening, which makes his little experiment all the more intriguing.
