{"id":72795,"date":"2026-08-19T19:22:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/72795\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T19:22:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:22:38","slug":"madrids-mourinho-shrugs-off-rodri-miss-after-his-move-to-barcelona-i-dont-need-rodri-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/72795\/","title":{"rendered":"Madrid&#8217;s Mourinho shrugs off Rodri miss after his move to Barcelona: &#8216;I don&#8217;t need Rodri&#8217; | National"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MADRID (AP) \u2014 Jos\u00e9 Mourinho is confident Real Madrid will be fine without Rodri despite admitting the club made \u201ca very good offer\u201d to try to sign the Spain captain.<\/p>\n<p>Rodri officially <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/rodri-barcelona-man-city-97061d60c3fedca929b060beb13f1f86\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">signed with Madrid rival Barcelona<\/a> after a transfer from Manchester City on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Mourinho, back with Madrid for a second stint, said he spoke twice with Rodri as Madrid considered adding the World Cup&#8217;s best player to its squad, but felt the midfielder didn&#8217;t seem certain about his future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe club contacted him but he had some doubts,\u201d Mourinho said in an interview to TV show \u201dEl Chiringuito&#8221; late Tuesday. &#8220;What I think happened is that his doubts have created doubts for me. He\u2019s an extraordinary player and was very correct with us. But I think Real Madrid is of such a stature that it can\u2019t have players who think twice about being with the club.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Just hours before Rodri&#8217;s signing was made official by Barcelona on Tuesday, Mourinho was <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/real-madrid-jose-mourinho-2b4aaff2e47224346164abe50c968e61\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">officially presented<\/a> by Madrid in an unusual ceremony closed to the media and fans.<\/p>\n<p>Mourinho, who <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/jose-mourinho-real-madrid-return-hired-9a2e283f6dc9740d3539789aba754212\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">was hired in June<\/a> and took over in July at the start of the preseason, downplayed the importance of Rodri to Madrid.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don&#8217;t need Rodri. We have solutions, quality players,&#8221; Mourinho said, adding that he didn&#8217;t think Barcelona got the best of Madrid by signing the midfielder. \u201cVictories are won on the field, they are won with titles.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After a second consecutive season without a major title, the club has bought players such as Marc Cucurella, Ibrahima Konat\u00e9, Denzel Dumfries, Bernardo Silva and Yan Diomande.<\/p>\n<p>Mourinho said the club does not intend to make new signings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not saying there won\u2019t be any more signings because the market is still open, but if you ask me directly if it&#8217;s closed (for Madrid), yes, it\u2019s closed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Madrid opens in La Liga on Saturday at Espanyol.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">See AP\u2019s full soccer coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID (AP) \u2014 Jos\u00e9 Mourinho is confident Real Madrid will be fine without Rodri despite admitting the club&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[28114,1743,17,396],"class_list":["post-72795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-mourinho-rodri-madrid-barcelona","tag-soccer","tag-spain","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72795","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=72795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}