Real Madrid ended the 2025/26 La Liga season as a team in total disarray. They had confirmed not winning any trophies for consecutive seasons, and instead of making headlines for their winning, which is what the Real Madrid DNA is supposed to be, they were making all the wrong kinds of news for a fractured locker room that was busier fighting itself than its opponents.
That was a huge, huge reason why Real Madrid president Florentino Perez reunited with Jose Mourinho, who had already taken on a Madrid in the early 2010s that had the wrong mentality and could not get over the line in the Champions League.
Beyond overhauling the defense with three marquee signings, Mourinho has already solved one of the club's biggest problems in the locker room. With rumors swirling that one of Fede Valverde or Aurelien Tchouameni could be let go after their locker room brouhaha at the end of the 2025/26 season, Fabrizio Romano has confirmed that Mourinho has made his stance on both players crystal clear.
Fede Valverde and Aurelien Tchouameni will be here
Mourinho is adamant that both Valverde and Tchouameni need to stay. Real Madrid did not even entertain transfer offers for Fede for even a second, and while they did kick around the idea of upgrading from Tchou to Enzo Fernandez or another young No. 6, they have just signed the Frenchman to a contract extension through the 2030/31 season that will come with a nice salary bump.
The message Mou has sent to both Tchouameni and Valverde is clear and simple: you are wanted and you are needed. One of the biggest things Mourinho does is give his players belief, and often times that is all an elite athlete needs to give it their all for a team.
What Mourinho has done here is especially important and also brilliant. He has taken two guys who were maligned by the media and presented as locker room troublemakers, and he has told them both that he is backing them. And he has shown it, too. There is not but a whisper of transfer strife around Valverde, meanwhile Tchouameni is getting a huge new contract that affirms his status as one of the best defensive midfielders in the world.
We have yet to see what Fede Valverde and Aurelien Tchouameni are going to do on the pitch in 2026/27, but nobody is talking about their conflict anymore. It's safe to say that Jose Mourinho has repaired that bridge for Los Blancos.
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