{"id":68435,"date":"2026-08-10T00:14:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T00:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/68435\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T00:14:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T00:14:24","slug":"jose-mourinho-takes-low-level-swipe-at-bernardo-silva-after-real-madrid-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/68435\/","title":{"rendered":"Jose Mourinho takes ‘low level’ swipe at Bernardo Silva after Real Madrid debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bernardo Silva made his first appearance for Real Madrid in a pre-season friendly against Ferencvaros on Saturday and Jose Mourinho gave a typically ruthless post-match comment\"Jose<\/p>\n

Jose Mourinho didn’t hold back(Image: Real Madrid TV)<\/p>\n

Ruthless Jose Mourinho<\/a> has told Bernardo Silva<\/a> that he ‘has to improve’ and criticised the new Real Madrid<\/a> star’s ‘low level’ of fitness. Silva, 31, joined Mourinho’s side on a free transfer<\/a> after his contract with Manchester City<\/a> expired in June.<\/p>\n

The Portugal<\/a> international made his debut on Saturday, helping Real beat Hungarian giants Ferencvaros 2-1 in a pre-season friendly. Silva played the second half and gave fans a first glimpse of the ‘incredible player’ that Mourinho has described him as.<\/p>\n

But it was the rest of his manager’s comments which raised eyebrows. “He is very important, but the poor guy is one of those players who benefits mentally from not doing anything during vacation, and he arrived for pre-season at a fairly low physical level,” Mourinho told Real Madrid TV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“He has to improve. But he is an incredible player.”<\/p>\n

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The Los Blancos boss then explained how he changed Silva’s position during the second half to compensate for his apparent lack of sharpness. “During the game, I realised he was lacking a little physical strength, so I moved him forward to the No. 10 position,” Mourinho added.<\/p>\n

“He can play there, too. He can play in three or four positions.”<\/p>\n

In addition to his criticism of Silva, Mourinho commented on Vinicius Junior’sr<\/a> decision to sign a new six-year contract with Real after crunch talks over his future. Arsenal<\/a> were waiting in the wings with a lucrative offer, but the Brazilian has opted to extend his stay at the Bernabeu.<\/p>\n

Will Jose Mourinho be successful at Real Madrid? Give us your prediction in the comments section<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"BUDAPEST,<\/p>\n

Bernardo Silva came on at half-time(Image: David Balogh\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“The most important thing is his contract renewal,” Mourinho said. “It’s a joy for him and for all of us. With so few training sessions, these are players who come into a game with tired legs from training.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t expect him to run 50 meters with the ball and score. He will surely be better on Wednesday (against Deportivo La Coruna) and even better on Sunday (against Schalke).”<\/p>\n

Real will begin their La Liga<\/a> campaign away to Espanyol<\/a> on Saturday, August 22 before Mourinho makes his grand return to the Bernabeu against Real Sociedad<\/a> four days later. Mourinho’s task is to bring the Spanish title back to Madrid and end Barcelona’s<\/a> two-year stronghold on the trophy.<\/p>\n

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Countdown to Kickoff: The Ultimate 26\/27 Sky Sports Bundle<\/p>\n

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Sky’s Ultimate TV and Sky Sports bundle includes at least 215 live Premier League clashes across the 2026\/27 season with more than 1,400 live games across the EFL and beyond, plus F1, golf and darts.<\/p>\n

Every subscription now comes with 135 channels alongside free subscriptions to HBO Max, Netflix, Disney+, discovery+ and Hayu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bernardo Silva made his first appearance for Real Madrid in a pre-season friendly against Ferencvaros on Saturday and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1252,4297,82,1643],"class_list":["post-68435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-madrid","tag-bernardo-silva","tag-jose-mourinho","tag-madrid","tag-real-madrid-cf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68435","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=68435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}