Mourinho receives sprinkler gift recalling iconic Barcelona celebration

Jose Mourinho was handed a sprinkler at Real Madrid’s Valdebebas training complex in a bizarre reminder of the night he celebrated Inter Milan’s Champions League semi-final victory over Barcelona in 2010.

The unusual presentation took place at the end of Mourinho’s news conference before Real Madrid’s meeting with his former club Inter Milan. As Mourinho was making his way towards the internal corridor of the Valdebebas complex, a journalist approached him with the unexpected gift.

The item was an ordinary water sprinkler of the type used to dampen and maintain football pitches before matches. But its significance was anything but ordinary.

Abraham Romero, a journalist with El Mundo, later revealed on social media that he was responsible for the gesture and had recorded the moment himself. The gift was intended as a reference to one of the most memorable episodes in Mourinho’s career and one of the most dramatic nights in Champions League history.

In 2010, Mourinho’s Inter Milan defeated Barcelona 3-2 on aggregate in the semi-final. Inter had built a strong advantage in the first leg and progressed despite losing the return match 1-0 at Camp Nou.

Mourinho celebrated the qualification with characteristic emotion. As he ran across the Camp Nou pitch, stadium staff turned on the sprinklers in an attempt to stop him from continuing his celebrations.

That image became one of the defining moments of Mourinho’s rivalry with Pep Guardiola, who was Barcelona’s manager at the time. The photographs and footage of Mourinho running through the water have since become closely associated with Inter Milan’s unexpected route to the final.

The sprinkler presented at Valdebebas was therefore designed as a humorous souvenir rather than a random present. It recreated the central prop from a scene that remains firmly embedded in the history of the competition and in the public memory of Mourinho’s career.

The incident was shared online with the caption:

“Un periodista italiano le ha regalado un aspersor a Mourinho al acabar la rueda de prensa en Valdebebas.Surrealismo extremo.@elmundoespic”

The gift brought back memories of a night that came to represent the intense contest between Mourinho and Guardiola, as well as the Portuguese manager’s ability to turn a football match into a spectacle beyond the pitch.

Mourinho’s press conferences at Valdebebas rarely pass without attracting attention, with even routine appearances often producing a memorable moment. On this occasion, the exchange with the journalist offered a fresh reminder that the events of the 2010 semi-final continue to follow him, even while he is now managing Real Madrid.

The original episode remains one of the most recognisable scenes from Mourinho’s time at Inter Milan: a famous qualification, a narrow defeat at Camp Nou and a celebration conducted beneath the stadium sprinklers. At Valdebebas, that history was revisited in an unexpected form.