Mourinho's Defense of Mbappe and Vinicius Amid Booing at Bernabeu
At the Bernabeu, where legends are made and dismantled in the space of a week, even a goal and a win are no guarantee of affection.
Kylian Mbappe had just moved joint-fifth on the all-time Champions League scorers list with the opener in Real Madrid’s 2-1 victory over Inter Milan. Vinicius Jr had run, pressed, and carried the ball as he so often does. The scoreboard said job done. The stands said something very different.
They booed their stars.
Not just the odd whistle drifting down from the rafters. Sustained jeers aimed at the two forwards who have come to define Madrid’s current era. The criticism has centred on their defensive work, on what they don’t do without the ball. The noise has grown loud enough that Jose Mourinho felt compelled to step into the storm.
And when Mourinho defends his players, he reaches for imagery that sticks.
Mourinho’s proverb and Madrid’s “fruit trees”
“In Portuguese, we have a proverb that says we only throw stones at the trees that have fruit,” he said when asked about Vinicius Jr.
It was classic Mourinho: sharp, pointed, impossible to ignore. He painted Vinicius as a tree heavy with fruit, weighed down by his own success and, because of it, a target.
“So 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? 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.”
This is the crux of his argument. You don’t waste your stones on barren branches. You go after the players who matter, the ones whose numbers fill columns and whose highlights fill screens.
Mourinho leaned on the modern game’s obsession with data to underline the point.
“During this digital era where we have access to so many stats, 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: the numbers don’t lie, even if the whistles do.
Mbappe, goals and the cold reception
Mbappe received the same treatment from the crowd, and Mourinho extended the same metaphor to the Frenchman, who is among the nominees for this year’s Ballon d’Or after scoring 42 goals in 44 games for Real Madrid last season.
“I want to remind you of the proverb I said before. He is the tree with a lot of fruit,” Mourinho added.
Then he stripped the debate down to its simplest form.
“Obviously a player who scores more than 40 goals for a team is never a problem.”
In Mourinho’s eyes, Mbappe is not the issue to be solved but the reason Madrid remain competitive. He praised not only the forward’s finishing but his work without the ball, the very area where sections of the fanbase have turned their fire.
“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.”
That description cuts against the image of a luxury forward drifting through games. Mourinho is adamant: this is not a star coasting on reputation, but one emptying the tank.
Why the boos?
Still, the reaction at the Bernabeu lingers. Why turn on two of the most decisive players in world football?
Spanish football expert Guillem Balague admits the answer is not straightforward.
“I don't think anyone really knows [why],” he told 5Live's Euro Leagues podcast.
He pointed to a mixture of factors. Two seasons without a trophy have left a mark. At Real Madrid, droughts are not measured in years but in headlines and recriminations. When the cabinet stays shut, someone pays.
“There was a bit about the past, of two years of no winning. But the two main stars are not that liked by the fans.”
Mbappe, in particular, has a complicated relationship with the supporters. His aura of superiority, his manner in front of the microphones, and his transfer saga history have all left scars.
“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 numbers back that up. Strip away his 42 goals and the narrative around Madrid’s season looks very different. Yet the emotional ledger in the stands doesn’t always match the statistical one.
Vinicius, Balague noted, finds himself in a similarly unforgiving spotlight.
“And Vinicius worked really hard without the ball, but 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.”
He runs, he presses, he tracks back, and still the whistles come. Every misplaced touch, every decision not to sprint, every flash of frustration is magnified.
At most clubs, players of this calibre are untouchable. At Real Madrid, they are exposed. The standards are brutal, the memories long, the patience short. Mourinho’s fruit trees are bearing heavily, but the stones keep flying.
How long that tension can last, with two of the game’s most decisive forwards under scrutiny in their own stadium, may shape not just this season, but the next chapter of Madrid’s modern era.
