Mourinho Defends Mbappe and Vinicius Amidst Whistles at Bernabeu
Jose Mourinho has never been afraid of a metaphor. This week at the Bernabeu, with the whistles still echoing around his two biggest stars, he reached for one from home.
“In Portuguese, we have a proverb that says we only throw stones at the trees that have fruit,” he said.
The targets of those stones were obvious: Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Jr.
Both were booed by sections of the Real Madrid support despite a 2-1 Champions League win over Inter Milan, a game in which Mbappe scored the opener and moved joint-fifth on the all-time list of Champions League scorers. Even that wasn’t enough to quiet the unrest.
Mourinho stands in front of his stars
Vinicius, often the emotional barometer of this Real Madrid side, heard the jeers as clearly as anyone. His defensive work has been questioned, his temperament dissected, his every gesture scrutinised. Mourinho, asked directly about the Brazilian, pushed back hard.
“What Vini has done here over recent years – how many CL has he won, how many goals has he scored, how many balls has he won?” Mourinho said. “His achievements speak for themselves so he is the tree that has a lot of fruit on it and people want to get a piece of Vini.”
He leaned on numbers to make his point. This is the “digital era”, as he called it, where every sprint, press and shot is tracked and packaged. For Mourinho, those figures show a player edging towards his peak.
“We can tell that he is very close to getting to his best version. He's even set some records already. The stats and numbers he registers suggest we will see his best version very soon.”
The message was clear: the boos are noise, the data is proof.
Mbappe: goals, whistles and a Ballon d’Or chase
If Vinicius divides, Mbappe complicates. He is already among the nominees for this year’s Ballon d’Or, coming off a season in which he scored 42 goals in 44 games for the club. Those are numbers that usually buy adoration, or at least protection.
Not in this stadium. Not right now.
Mourinho repeated his proverb for the Frenchman too.
“I want to remind you of the proverb I said before. He is the tree with a lot of fruit,” he said. “Obviously a player who scores more than 40 goals for a team is never a problem.”
He went further, praising the side of Mbappe that rarely makes the highlight reels.
“I saw Kylian giving it his all. He was defending like an animal, even when he had nothing left. His attitude is incredible. It is a joy for me to see a player like that.”
It was a manager’s classic shield: underline the work rate, highlight the sacrifice, reframe the narrative around effort rather than ego.
Why the boos?
Still, the question lingers: why turn on two players who carry so much of the attacking burden?
Spanish football expert Guillem Balague offered a blunt assessment when speaking to 5Live’s Euro Leagues podcast. He pointed first to the recent past.
“There was a bit about the past, of two years of no winning,” he said. For Real Madrid, two seasons without a trophy is not a blip; it’s an identity crisis. The biggest names always feel that first.
But Balague believes the relationship between the fans and their two stars goes deeper than results.
“The two main stars are not that liked by the fans,” he said. With Mbappe, it is about perception and history. “Mbappe feels a little bit cold, sometimes he can be like Cristiano Ronaldo and he speaks like he is bigger than Real Madrid. And also, he said no to Real Madrid about three times before and maybe they haven't forgotten that – but without Mbappe's goals, the club would be in a very different place.”
The crowd, in other words, has a long memory. Every previous rejection lingers in the background, even as Mbappe scores the goals that keep the club competing at the highest level.
Vinicius faces a different kind of scrutiny. His energy without the ball, his willingness to press, were both on show against Inter.
“Vinicius worked really hard without the ball,” Balague noted, yet the reaction in the stands remained harsh. “They just don't forgive him anything even though he did renew his contract. It's a bit of a mystery but I think he is feeling the heat of it.”
A fragile truce at the Bernabeu
So here Real Madrid stand: a team powered by two forwards who are both indispensable and doubted, protected fiercely by a coach who knows the politics of this club as well as anyone.
Mbappe keeps scoring. Vinicius keeps running. Mourinho keeps talking.
The whistles, for now, keep coming too. The next few months will decide whether they fade into background noise, or grow into something that even trees heavy with fruit can no longer ignore.
