{"id":42655,"date":"2026-06-18T16:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T16:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/42655\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T16:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T16:34:12","slug":"antonio-rudiger-excited-to-finally-work-with-mourinho-at-real-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/42655\/","title":{"rendered":"Antonio R\u00fcdiger Excited To Finally Work With Mourinho At Real Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Antonio R\u00fcdiger has opened up about his Real Madrid<\/a> future, his excitement about working under Jos\u00e9 Mourinho, and the club\u2019s ambitions moving forward while speaking to the media on World Cup duty with Germany.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t say too much, but I can say that I\u2019m incredibly excited to work with Mourinho (after nearly joining him on several occasions in the past). Finally, I\u2019m going to play under him. In the past, there were many conversations with him, but for some reason, it never materialized. That\u2019s why I\u2019m even happier to welcome him to us now.\u201d<\/p>\n

R\u00fcdiger also reflected on a difficult physical year, explaining that injuries made last season challenging but that his commitment to Real Madrid never wavered. The German international made it clear that Madrid has become home for him and his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a tough year last year, especially physically. I had to fight a lot with injuries, but I managed to come back. Madrid is practically my home. I feel very good there, my family feels very good there, and that\u2019s why I never really thought about anything else. I just wanted to get back in shape and earn my new contract. And I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defender was also asked about the possibility of Nico Schlotterbeck<\/a> joining Real Madrid. While R\u00fcdiger avoided giving too much away, he praised his Germany teammate\u2019s defensive intensity, aerial threat, and quality on the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, good players are always welcome. I can\u2019t say much more about that. I would be absolutely delighted (if Schlotterbeck joined). Especially on attacking set pieces, he was always a threat to the opposition. And in duels, he was very intense and fully engaged. Furthermore, Nico\u2019s excellent ball distribution is truly remarkable. His left foot is pure gold. It has to be acknowledged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, R\u00fcdiger addressed Real Madrid\u2019s recent struggles and pointed to the elite attacking talent in the squad as a reason for optimism. Despite admitting that the last two years have been difficult, he backed Madrid\u2019s biggest names to deliver in decisive moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last two years at Real Madrid were tough. We weren\u2019t successful. But if you look at the profile of players we have there, those kinds of players, like Kylian Mbapp\u00e9<\/a>, Jude Bellingham<\/a>, or Vinicius<\/a>, are exactly the ones who step up when you need those decisive players.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Antonio R\u00fcdiger has opened up about his Real Madrid future, his excitement about working under Jos\u00e9 Mourinho, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1884,4297,91,557,82,89,14372,83,19676,1318,19677,19675],"class_list":["post-42655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-madrid","tag-antonio-rudiger","tag-jose-mourinho","tag-jude-bellingham","tag-kylian-mbappe","tag-madrid","tag-nico-schlotterbeck","tag-north-carolina","tag-real-madrid","tag-team-germany","tag-vinicius","tag-winston-salem","tag-winston-salem-state-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}