Mourinho Supports Vinicius Amid Slow Start
José Mourinho did not try to hide it. Vinicius is off his game.
But he made something else very clear: the Brazilian is still running, still tackling, still emptying the tank for Real Madrid.
“He isn't at his best, and he knows it,” Mourinho told reporters after the final whistle. “But he's working hard to be the Vinicius who decides games. Without being at his best, he's working harder than ever.”
In a tight, tactical battle with Inter, that effort came with a visible cost. Vinicius faded late on, his sprints back towards his own full-back growing fewer, his legs clearly heavy. Mourinho refused to see that as a flaw.
“In the moments that he wasn't able to drop back and defend, it was because of fatigue,” he said. “I have to value that a lot. I have a lot of respect for this Vinicius. The time will come when he decides games, and wins us games.”
Mourinho backs Vinicius through slow start
This is not an isolated dip. It has been a bruising spell for the Brazil international.
A difficult 2025-26 season left him under constant scrutiny from the Bernabéu crowd, his every miscontrol and missed chance met with impatience. Despite that, Vinicius committed his long-term future to Madrid in the summer, a clear statement that he wanted to fight for his place and his status.
The response so far has been modest by his standards. One goal and two assists in five appearances is a respectable return for many wingers; for Vinicius, it feels light. The explosive one-on-ones, the ruthless finishes, the moments that tilt entire nights his way have not yet flowed.
Mourinho, though, framed that lack of end product within the context of the opposition and the system he faced.
“If he works, he'll always have my support,” he insisted. “He worked very hard for the team. Playing against a side that plays with three at the back, with wing-backs, it's very hard for the wingers.
“Obviously with the one-on-ones he had on the left wing, with Vini at his best, he'd kill the game. That's what we expect of him. But he gave everything.”
The message was pointed: the goals will come, but the work cannot stop. For now, Mourinho is choosing to praise the graft rather than lament the missing spark.
Makeshift Madrid feel Inter’s tactical strain
The contest with Inter did more than expose Vinicius’s fatigue. It underlined how stretched Mourinho’s squad is in key areas.
Suspensions to Bernardo Silva, Arda Guler and Eduardo Camavinga ripped the heart out of his creative and midfield options. With so many natural central players unavailable, Mourinho turned to Trent Alexander-Arnold and dropped him into an unfamiliar role in the middle of the pitch.
It was a bold solution, and a demanding one.
“It's hard for Trent,” Mourinho admitted. “I appreciate the effort he made, but with his characteristics, the specificity needed to play full-back or central midfield, it's completely different physically.”
Alexander-Arnold tried to knit play, tried to see the game in 360 degrees, but the adjustment from full-back to central conductor is brutal at this level.
“He had some losses of the ball, because it's not the same playing with the whole field in front of you, and playing with half the field behind you,” Mourinho explained. “He's played there a few times with Liverpool and the national team, but it's completely different. He didn't have more to give.”
Between an out-of-position Alexander-Arnold and an out-of-form but tireless Vinicius, Madrid pushed through the game with a patched-up structure and heavy legs. The coach’s public stance was unwavering: protect the players, praise the effort, absorb the criticism himself.
The question now is whether that faith, in both Vinicius and this improvised Madrid shape, will soon be rewarded on the scoreboard or tested even further in the weeks ahead.
