Mourinho reveals the key instruction he gave Valverde to break open the AEK game

Some games come down to small details, and this was one of them. Real Madrid struggled more than it should have to beat AEK Athens, and in the press conference afterward, Jose Mourinho pointed to one name to explain how the match finally opened up: Fede Valverde.

The Portuguese coach didn't speak in vague tactical terms. He went straight to explaining what he asked of the Uruguayan once the game began to stretch out in the closing minutes. According to Mourinho, it wasn't an instruction for his captain to hug the touchline and send in crosses, but something else entirely: take advantage of the fact that both teams were already physically spent.

Mourinho was the first to admit that Valverde doesn't perform the same way in every position. When the Uruguayan plays at fullback, he explained, the role demands something different and is "trickier" for him. But in that final stretch, with the game falling apart structurally, the coach saw the perfect chance to turn him loose.

"Fede has that ability. When he plays at fullback, that position is trickier for him. Today I didn't ask him to go wide and cross, I told him the game had opened up, to play with speed, with both teams worn out"Jose Mourinho

The key, according to the coach himself, was the Uruguayan's physical freshness and his ability to cover huge amounts of ground. That combination was exactly what Mourinho wanted to exploit once AEK Athens no longer had the legs to keep pace.

"A fresh player like Fede, with his ability to eat up ground, I told him to attack spaces and get into dangerous areas"Jose Mourinho

A player for any situation

This isn't the first time Mourinho has highlighted his captain's versatility. Valverde has long shown he can handle different roles depending on what a match requires: sometimes more defensively disciplined, sometimes as an offensive engine, sometimes covering ground other players simply can't reach.

What the Portuguese coach made clear is that this reading of the game was no accident. It was a decision made for a very specific moment in the match, when the fatigue on both sides opened up gaps that a player with Valverde's stamina could exploit better than anyone else. And the result, once again, proved him right.