OneFootball
·3 September 2026
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·3 September 2026
José Mourinho spoke at a press conference ahead of this Friday’s match against Real Betis Balompié.
This is what the coach said about Asencio: "I spoke to him when I arrived regarding things from the past. Since I arrived, I no longer speak about off-field situations. At Valdebebas he is an exemplary professional; when he was well, nobody trained more or better than him. Now he is the first to arrive and the last to leave. But a Real Madrid player is a Real Madrid player 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 12 months a year. Everything you do outside still reflects on Real Madrid. It continues to damage the prestige of a club that is untouchable. I’m not happy, and everyone makes mistakes, but repeated mistakes are different."
"The club has opened an investigation. As long as the investigation is open, I see him as a Real Madrid player. He is injured and will remain so for a couple of weeks. That helps keep me out of this problem."
Later, Mou spoke about Messi’s retirement from the national team: "Talking about Messi is complicated. There are no words. He has been what we have all seen; he is one of those players you are going to miss. We’ll have to watch some MLS matches, which I don’t like very much. There are players you always miss. And we know what he means."
"Many work with me at some point, but even the ones who don’t come up, we pay a lot of attention to them. They have done a great job in recent years and the result is that they have moved up to the first team... Thiago... and the many millions that Real Madrid has brought in through transfers that aren’t really transfers, because in the end Real Madrid gets the players back whenever it wants to bring them back. As the season develops, with suspensions, injuries... opportunities will always come. I know them better every day and we are in daily contact with Manu and La Fábrica. And all the kids can be... I’m not going to take all of them, but they can all be excited about moving up to the first team."
"He has trained with the first team for two days. We gave our opinion on whether he could make it here. He has potential and a little experience in the top flight. He has to work, but the level of quality and intensity here is different. There he is; tomorrow it will be him, Rivas, Cestero... and we’ll see whether he plays or not, but it’s a step forward."
"That situation... nobody knows him better than Simeone. And I don’t see that I have absolutely anything to say in relation to this situation. What I normally say is that when a player is not satisfied, by September 1 you have to be satisfied or you don’t play. My feeling is that from yesterday and at least until the end of the season, he will be an important player for his club."
"We spoke on the phone for three minutes, I told him I wasn’t counting on him. And although players often cling to their contracts, in this case he understood the situation and said he preferred to be released and decide his future. We reached an agreement, terminated the contract, and Ceballos was free to decide."
"I never hold anything against anyone because we cannot go back in time. There is such a long past in football that there are things one says and does, and you feel like an idiot. You feel you were wrong. I have made stupid comments. Then, if he hears us, he will laugh because I paid for it, for example, with Chelsea’s title. He has shown great class with me, in a Betis-Roma friendly, with a referee who loved Betis. We were left with seven players on the pitch and he told his players not to crush us. They could have scored eight against us and they scored three. A great example as a coach and as a person."
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.
📸 Juan Manuel Serrano Arce - 2026 Getty Images







































