The Calm One: how Mourinho appeared at the first press conference after returning to Real

The former Chelsea, Manchester United and Inter manager made a surprise return to the Santiago Bernabeu in June - 13 years after his first spell at the Madrid club ended. Real begin the new La Liga season on Saturday - a week later than many other teams - with an away match against Espanyol in Barcelona. This game will be Mourinho's first in his second term in Madrid. "I'm fine," Mourinho told reporters during a 40-minute press conference on Friday. "It's the first official match of the season, but I've been doing this for over 20 years. I'm calm. It's another season, another match. Some football players spent 36 training sessions and played six matches, others - only five training sessions and part of one match. We have outstanding players and a great coaching staff, and I had the opportunity to work with them of varying intensity and content. I'm very happy with the situation." Real became the 13th club in the Portuguese manager's more than 25-year coaching career to leave Benfica to return to the Spanish capital. Asked if he misses his former clubs, Mourinho said: "To be honest, I'm not the type of person who misses anything or regrets the past. I don't think, 'Oh, it was the wrong decision' or 'Oh, I miss that.' Real Madrid had a busy transfer summer. Denzel Dumfries, Ibrahim Konate, Marc Cucurella, Bernardo Silva, Ian Diomande and Carlos Espy joined the team. Mourinho has made a lot of personnel decisions, but the Portuguese assures that he does not have an unchanged main squad. "The starting line-up? Let's see who among you has the best contacts. Let's see who has the best sources of information," said the 63-year-old coach. "The players already know who will play. I'm not one to hide anything. Maybe in a few hours your information will appear, but I won't tell you. And to go back to your question about the ideal starting line-up: I don't have one. Or I just don't want to have it." Despite more than 200 million euros spent on transfers, Rodri was not among Real Madrid's newcomers. The captain of Spain's World Cup-winning team has decided to move to Madrid's arch-rivals Barcelona, ​​despite serious interest from Real Madrid. "I don't think we're missing anything," Mourinho said when asked about Real's failure to sign the former Manchester City midfielder. "Then you can ask: 'If you're not missing anything, why did you want to sign Rodri?' He would be the icing on the cake. He is a great football player, a player with great experience and status. If we could sign him, we would and we would be stronger. But when you have Aurelien Tchuameni, Eduardo Kamavinga, Federico Valverde, Bernardo, Arda... you can't say that we have a problem or that we need to look for another player." And what would Mourinho of 2013 advise Mourinho of 2026? "A good question, even a philosophical one," he replied. "Look, the Mourinho of today is in a position to give advice to the Mourinho of 2013. Do you give advice to your father or does your father give you advice?" You must always remain calm. It is much easier for me now than it was five or ten years ago. Then I got two or three red cards per season, and you asked me: "José, where is your peace?" In football, there are a few hours when you have to stay calm, but the rest of the time you have to stay calm as well. And now I'm in a better position to do that than when I left the club." Calm Mourinho? During his first spell at Real, some Spanish journalists joked that Mourinho's press conferences should be shown on pay-per-view - they were so spectacular. His first meeting with journalists after returning to the club was also definitely noteworthy. Mourinho spoke for more than 40 minutes, an unusually long time for a press conference held by the head coach of Real Madrid. It was more like a casual conversation: he talked to reporters about his ideas without trying to constantly issue loud quotes, but at the same time he was surprisingly open to questions and provided a lot of details. The Portuguese did not hesitate to say that Rodri would be the "icing on the cake" for his project, and also admitted that he was affected by the departure of goalkeeping coach Luis Llopis and wider changes in the coaching staff. However, it was his tone that caught my eye the most - calm and thoughtful, which sometimes reminds me