José Mourinho said Kylian Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior’s “super quality” will be key to forging a connection which will help Real Madrid win trophies this season.
Madrid have six points out of six in LaLiga so far this season, with Mbappé scoring a hat trick and Vinícius also on target in a 4-1 win over Real Sociedad in midweek.
Two years without a major trophy have led to doubts over whether a team featuring both superstars, plus Jude Bellingham, could win silverware, but Mourinho praised their progress ahead of Sunday’s game with Málaga at the Bernabéu.
“The key point is the quality, we’re talking about super quality,” he said in a news conference, when asked about Mbappé and Vinicius. “Then the second point — secondary but still important — that’s the empathy between two people.
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“A lot of empathy, friendship, collaboration. When you combine that with brutal quality, we have everything to get better. But the dynamic isn’t two plus nine. It’s 11 [players]. They’ll perform better all the time, and I couldn’t be happier with what they’re doing.”
Mourinho implied that Mbappé deserves to win this year’s Men’s Ballon d’Or after his goalscoring exploits at the World Cup — becoming the highest scorer in the competition’s history — and arguing the winner shouldn’t necessarily play for Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain or world champions Spain.
“There are 12 or so players [who could win it], and we have three or four of them,” Mourinho said.
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“You shouldn’t give a Ballon d’Or because you won a World Cup or Champions League. If you want to reward that, give it to [coaches] Luis Enrique or De la Fuente. Another thing is the best player in the world. That doesn’t have to be a PSG player or a Spain player.
“There are two or three [contenders] and we know who they are and where they are. We know who individually made history this summer.”
Bellingham has also received praise after his dominant performances in both of Madrid’s games so far, scoring against Espanyol and providing two assists against Real Sociedad.
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“He’s a unique player, super important for the team,” Mourinho said. “He’s a player with different talents: physically, mentally, tactically, winning balls back, pressing, goalscoring, his play up front… He’s so impressive to me.
“I like talking a lot about Kylian, Vini, Jude, and I understand the questions, but I’m happy with all the players. Here we only have great players, great, great players, and great, great, great players. And the team has to work as a team.”
