Mourinho plans his Real Madrid with Neymar

Guangzhou, China, August 4, 2011. Approximately 9:45 pm local time. Jose Mourinho, sweaty and satisfied, appears before an international legion of journalists, with an absolute majority of Chinese. His Real Madrid has just scored seven goals against the first rival of the tour. He evaluates the improvement of his players, score capacity, speed... but leaves a great headline: "We have a squad short... by choice".

The sentence as so many of Mourinho is distorted, cut and gets on your nerves to the point that in his next public appearance, the coach repeats the phrase in English with a sarcasm: "I am going to explain in English better...". Portuguese coach insists that the squad is short because he asked it, but there is a trick around. He knows that the template -20 or 21 field players- will have a new member in January: Neymar.

Mourinho knew then and knows now. Neymar will play for Real Madrid after the World Club Cup. In his book, when he comes to planning for the season, he looks for a balance of two players per position and the name of the Santos' star appears noted in red. The funny thing is that the coach does not point him in the strikers payroll along with Benzema and Higuain but in that of midfielders. "Neymar is no striker, is a player to play behind the '9' in any of the three midfield positions", Mourinho told to his assistants at Real Madrid when he was informed the deal was closed with the player.

According to Mourinho, Neymar can play any of the three midfield positions in his usual 4-2-3-1 scheme. At first, the Brazilian would dispute a place in the right wing with Di Maria, but could play as playmaker in Özil's central position and even occupy the left side owned by the untouchable Cristiano Ronaldo.

Neymar is on Mourinho's plans