Federico Valverde makes honest Real Madrid admission after Inter win: “Courtois saved us”

Federico Valverde makes honest Real Madrid admission after Inter win: “Courtois saved us” Real Madrid defeated Inter Milan 2-1 in their opening match of the 2026-27 Champions League campaign at the Bernabeu on Tuesday, but it was not a particularly great night for Jose Mourinho’s side. First half goals from Kylian Mbappe and Federico Valverde were ultimately enough to start the league phase on a high, but Los Blancos were second-best for large parts of the contest, which will be a big concern for Mourinho and his coaching staff. Had it not been for goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, Real Madrid likely would not have won. This was acknowledged by Valverde, who dedicated his MVP award to his teammate when speaking to Movistar post-match (via MD ). He also delivered his assessment of the 90 minutes at the Bernabeu. “Thibaut has a lot of merit in this award because today he saved us, he has made a tremendous performance and this award is also his. We had a great first half. We had chances but always playing our game. In the second half we didn’t play our game and we suffered a lot and that’s something that doesn’t have to happen, and even less so playing at home. We should have imposed our game. We rushed a lot when it came to defining the plays. When attacking we didn’t have that patience to have a little more ball, to play and rest a little and that led us to make the game a little crazy.” Valverde reveals Mourinho half time team talk Valverde also divulged the contents of Mourinho’s half time team talk, which followed an underwhelming performance in the opening 45 minutes despite the two goals. “Mourinho told us clearly at half time to have more of the ball, especially in their own half, to play much more and be calm and we didn’t do that. We have to be self-critical. It’s true that we won and it’s important to start winning, but the players have to be aware that we had a bad second half, we played their game and we didn’t play a great game. We had a lot of chances, but we didn’t play our game. A lot of counterattacks, mistakes from them at the back… We created quite a few chances but we also suffered a lot.” Regardless of how the victory came about, it was an important one for Real Madrid on Tuesday. Valverde made it clear that confidence is back within the squad after it dropped following the defeat to Real Betis last weekend. “It’s important to win to regain confidence. We lost against Betis and we lost confidence but today we regained it. We didn’t play our best game. I understand the fans. The players have to have things much clearer, especially when we are winning.”