Mourinho and Bellingham agree to free the Englishman from defensive duties to boost his attacking output

Four goals, a comfortable rout, and yet Jose Mourinho's press conference ended up being just as interesting as the match itself. Real Madrid thrashed Malaga 4-0, and the Portuguese coach used the occasion to hand out praise, keep his distance from a refereeing controversy, and make clear how he sees the role of some of his most important players.

The headline name, as has become the norm, was Jude Bellingham. The Englishman was the best player on the pitch, but after the match he didn't hold back on self-criticism, saying the team's last twenty minutes "were awful." Mourinho didn't just fail to contradict him, he agreed with that assessment without hesitation.

In the last 20 minutes, up 3-0, there can be a tendency to lose a bit of order or relax a little. We all felt that. But it's normal that we don't have the fuel or the mentality to sustain it for 90 minutes, it's something that has to come graduallyJose Mourinho

The pact with Bellingham

Beyond the result, the coach dwelled on something he has been working on for a while with his star midfielder: freeing him from purely defensive duties to get more out of him in attack. As he explained, there is an unspoken agreement between the two so that Bellingham doesn't end up playing "almost like a second left back," something that was already clear in the win over Benfica.

"He's very demanding of himself and of everyone else, and I like that a lot. I agreed with him that my way of seeing him was without defending, almost like a second left back. In the match we won against Benfica we made a lot of use of that setup. Now we've organized the team differently, where he knows exactly what he has to do," Mourinho detailed in the press room.

The other side of the press conference came when he was asked about comments from Juanfran Funes, Malaga's coach, who had claimed that Real Madrid's players "get a foul called if you just blow on them" and that his team needs "to bleed" for the referee to rule against Madrid. Mourinho didn't take the bait: "It doesn't deserve a comment," he said, closing the door on further questions on the subject.

Praise for Camavinga and Huijsen

Instead, he chose to talk about his own players. He had words of recognition for Eduardo Camavinga, whom he described as "a very beloved kid who had a great match," and he also addressed Dean Huijsen, who had gone through difficult moments last season. The coach preferred not to draw comparisons with that recent past and instead focused on what he values in a center back.

"I don't want to compare him to last year. I know him very well. For me, what I really like in a center back is clarity on the ball, the confidence to build from the back, the ability to play passes between the lines, but most important for me is his toughness and his ability to win duels and give us confidence that we have two solid men back there," Mourinho explained, before joking about the defender's performance: "I like center backs who defend well, and if they can be handsome and good with the ball too, even better."

The coach wrapped up his appearance by putting the result into a broader context, that of a locker room trying to rebuild confidence after two difficult seasons. "It's a difficult mission, and not one for a month, it's something for the whole season," he said, making clear that the rout of Malaga is just one step in a process that, in his view, is only just beginning.