Jose Mourinho says Vinícius Júnior was never pulling away from Real Madrid in the first place. The Brazilian signed a new long-term deal earlier this month, despite being heavily linked with Arsenal, and Mourinho said the key question was always whether the player wanted to stay.
Mourinho's reading of the contract call
"The news wasn’t a surprise. When I arrived and was told about his contractual situation, my first question was, ‘Does he want to stay or not?’ And he wanted to stay. It was a matter of numbers and his agents, but he wants to stay," Mourinho told sportsmole.co.uk.
That is the version the Madrid coach wanted to put on the record. He also said, "I think he’s happy, confident in how we’re preparing for matches, and he wants to win from day one, even before signing his new contract. Every little conversation we had always ended with ‘let’s improve, let’s win again, and let’s be happy again.’"
What the Arsenal noise now looks like
Mourinho was careful not to turn the story into a transfer chase drama. The interest from Arsenal was real enough to sit around the deal, but the line from Madrid is that the extension was driven by Vinícius Júnior's own desire to stay.
That also fits the on-pitch picture. Vinícius Júnior already has 4 goals and 1 assist this season, and he has logged 463 minutes, which is why Madrid were always likely to treat this as a player they had to keep rather than a problem to solve.
He is also in the squad for Real Madrid's opening match of the new league season against Espanyol on Saturday night. Real Madrid's gameweek one fixture against Real Sociedad follows on August 26.
Written by Daniel Hartley with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
