the programme “El Larguero” on Cadena SER radio<\/a> as Mourinho’s “real footballing change”.<\/p>\nSpeaking on the programme “Sanedrin” with Alvaro Benito, Gabilondo explained that the new Mourinho has ditched his old ideas, once built around a rigid, physically imposing double pivot. “In the previous era, it would have been impossible for us to see Bernardo Silva playing as a second holding midfielder alongside Tchouameni,” he said. “He is a player under 1.70 metres tall and physically light, this would have been impossible in Mourinho’s tough era.”<\/p>\n
This transformation is no isolated case. It reflects a complete philosophy the coach has applied since his final years at Benfica, where he leaned on a playmaker close to the defensive holding midfielder.<\/p>\n
Turkey’s Arda Guler tells the same story. He now plays in a slightly deeper position behind Jude Bellingham to support the central midfielder, a role the old Mourinho would have branded an incalculable risk.<\/p>\n
For Gabilondo, Bernardo Silva starting Real’s opener against Espanyol next Saturday is a foregone conclusion, making it the first official test of this new model.<\/p>\n
You can discuss the topics and news in more depth on the “Kooora” forums<\/p>\n
Real Madrid enter the season a match behind after the postponement of their first-round fixture. They begin from the second round three points adrift of their rivals, a fresh challenge for Mourinho, who wants to prove his change runs deeper than personality and reaches into the football itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jose Mourinho’s return to Real Madrid means more than a change of personality. It signals a radical tactical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3637,26176,1414,82,83],"class_list":["post-73141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-madrid","tag-a-guler","tag-b-silva","tag-j-mourinho","tag-madrid","tag-real-madrid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73141","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=73141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}