For every heartbreak in football, someone finds the silver lining, and on the night Kylian Mbappe’s World Cup dream ended, that someone was Jose Mourinho. While the Frenchman was picking himself up off the Dallas turf, his new manager was quietly banking three more first-team bodies for a Real Madrid pre-season that had, until Tuesday night, been running short-staffed.
Spain beat France 2-0 in the first World Cup semi-final, Mikel Oyarzabal converting a first-half penalty before Pedro Porro doubled the lead with a slick second-half counter-attack, according to FIFA’s official match report. The result eliminates three of Real Madrid’s representatives at the tournament in one night: Mbappe and Aurelien Tchouameni started for France, while Ibrahima Konate was an unused substitute. It’s a cruel flip from the build-up, when the all-Madridista collision course between Mbappe and Marc Cucurella was the story of the day — Mbappe’s tournament is over, while his new club-mate Cucurella, who started for Spain, is through to Sunday’s final.
Yet, looking past the disappointment for the trio individually, the timing could hardly suit Mourinho better.
A Shorter Wait For Mourinho’s Rebuilt Spine
Real Madrid’s official site had previewed the semi-final by noting four madridistas were still chasing a place in the final: Mbappe, Tchouameni and Konate for France, Cucurella for Spain. With three of those four now out of the tournament, Mourinho’s reduced pre-season squad at Valdebebas gains size sooner than the club had been planning for. Spanish reporting indicates Mbappe, Tchouameni and Konate are now projected to report back to training around August 5, roughly a week ahead of squad-mates still involved through the final weekend.
That matters for a manager who has been working almost entirely with academy graduates, uncalled players and the injury list since his first session on Monday. Getting a World Cup winner’s runner-up medal is one kind of consolation; getting Mbappe on the training pitch a week early, with a full pre-season to work on fitness and understand Mourinho’s structure, is the one that shows up in September.
Cucurella’s Final Complicates The Picture
Cucurella’s continued involvement means Mourinho’s squad now arrives in three separate waves rather than two. Real Madrid supporters had already been told to expect Bernardo Silva, Fede Valverde, Thibaut Courtois and other already-eliminated internationals back on the earliest return date; Mbappe, Tchouameni and Konate now slot into a similar August 5 window. Cucurella, by contrast, is projected for around August 10 if Spain beat Argentina or England in Sunday’s final — meaning the versatile defender, one of Mourinho’s marquee summer signings, could miss the opening exchanges of pre-season entirely if his country goes all the way.
It leaves the head coach with a genuine selection puzzle before a ball is kicked in anger: does he build his first XI around the players available from day one, or hold auditions open for a World Cup finalist who might not land in Madrid until the second half of August? Mourinho, whose team news updates through the tournament have been tracked closely by the club’s medical staff, has given no public indication either way.
What is clear is that Tuesday night’s result, painful as it was for the three players concerned, hands the new manager exactly what he joked about wanting when preseason began: his stars back sooner rather than later. Mourinho has been careful not to publicly wish ill on his own players’ international campaigns, but the practical reality is unavoidable — every early Real Madrid exit from the World Cup is another body available for pre-season, and after Tuesday, Mourinho picked up three of them at once.
