Mourinho has contacted three Real Madrid stars; sees key forward as the leader of the locker room | OneFootball

Real Madrid are closing in on Jose Mourinho as their next manager and talks are said to be in the final stages.

The Portuguese manager, after all, is seen to have all the qualities needed to lead a dressing room as full of egos as Real Madrid’s, especially at a time when the club have failed to win a trophy in two seasons.

Mourinho is keen on returning to Madrid, and the club seem to share that stance with the sudden elections appearing to be the only major hurdle for its completion.

Manager’s inroads to the dressing room

As reported by Miguel Serrano in a recent update, Mourinho has already begun taking steps towards winning the dressing room’s favour and has begun by making contact with some of the heavyweights.

The journalist reports that the soon-to-be Real Madrid manager has directly spoken to three prominent names in the dressing room in recent days – Thibaut Courtois, Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Jr.

Vini the ‘dressing room leader’

Set to be Mourinho’s main man? (Photo by Denis Doyle/Getty Images)

Of them, Mourinho is convinced that Vinicius Jr. is his most important man and wants the player to be his ‘soldier’ on the field.

The manager knows of the massive leadership role that Vinicius plays in the dressing room and that the team loves him. He thus believes that if he gets the Brazilian to buy into his project at the club, the squad will follow suit.

Ironically, however, Vinicius is the Real Madrid player with whom Mourinho currently shares the most difficult history, especially given everything that happened between them in Real Madrid’s clash against Benfica earlier this season.

Since then, however, word has come out that Vinicius has agreed to drop the grudge and put the team’s needs in front of his own. If the player is indeed willing to make amends with the coach, it will undoubtedly help with Mourinho’s rumoured plan.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese tactician sees Mbappe as the leader of the project. So, both him and Vinicius are set to be integral to Mourinho’s plans once he takes over at Real Madrid.