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in the building. Not so much as another one of the coaches but as the ultimate handyman.
    Impeccably fitted out in a light woollen Italian suit, with a tie that never moved and a fashionable but unpretentious haircut, tanned even in the gloomiest of winter days, Jorge Paulo Agostinho Mendes was the first players’ agent who saw himself as a powerful businessman, often speaking as a self-styled agent of the ‘industry’ of football. Mourinho also used the term ‘industry’ in his speeches, seasoning his turns of phrase with expressions from the world of financial technocracy. For many other football agents, this was an artificial pose. ‘They think they’re executives at Standard & Poor’s,’ said one Madrid player’s FIFA agent.
    Born in Lisbon in 1966, Mendes was raised in a working-class neighbourhood. His father worked in the oil company Galp and he won his first trophies selling straw hats on the beach in Costa Caparica. He played football at junior championship level and, determined to make it as a professional, migrated north to Viana do Castelo. He ran a video rental store, worked as a DJ and opened his own nightclub in Caminha, before discovering that he had a gift – the talent of first being able to gain the trust of players, and then being able to value them, generally above market prices. His first major transaction was the transfer of goalkeeper Nuno from Vitória de Gimarães to Deportivo de la Coruña in 1996. With the commission obtained from the deal, the foundation was laid for Gestifute to become the football industry’s most powerful agency, with subsidiaries such as Polaris Sports, dedicated to the management of image rights, marketing and advertising, and the promotional agency Gestifute Media.
    Mourinho and Mendes shared an office straight away. The agent set himself up in the suburb of La Finca in Pozuelo. He went to Valdebebas, along with his players and his coach, almost every morning, accompanied by various assistants. When it was training time he would sit in Mourinho’s chair and look out of the window from his own private agency to follow the progress of the team from up on high.
    The sight of Mendes in his dark-blue pinstripe suit sitting behind the glass, drinking coffee and looking at everything from behind the mask of his sunglasses, sparked the imagination of the players every morning as they warmed up. There was no shortage of jokes and laughter. Especially when jogging as a group, they had the feeling they were being watched from above.
    ‘There’s the lord and master of the club,’ said one. ‘There’s the boss.’
    Mendes entertained his business partners in Mourinho’s office. There they organised their interviews with other agents. Juanma López, the former Atlético player, who was now a players’ agent, appeared one morning. It was a topic of conversation for the naturally curious players. ‘Mendes has his office here,’ they commented. Lass Diarra did not understand what all the fuss was about: ‘Who’s that?’ he said. The Frenchman had never seen López play.
    The first stone of Valdebebas was laid on 12 May 2004. During the opening Pérez gave a visionary speech: he imagined a huge theme park that club members could access daily and in which they rubbed shoulders with the players.
    ‘The new “City of Real Madrid” has an inclusive character,’ he said. ‘It will be open to all who love the sport and want to enjoy all the possibilities for entertainment around it.’
    The old Ciudad Deportiva ‘Sport City’ on the Avenida Castellana, which finally closed in 2004, had been an accessible complex. Anyone, in exchange for a few pesetas, could get in to admire their idols as they trained. In Valdebebas the club forbade fans entering on weekdays. Even club members, whose contributions to the budget, mainly through ticketing, subscriptions or contributions, make up a third of Madrid’s income, were denied access.
    The first-team training sessions were