The Spanish season is under way, and with it the return of Jose Mourinho as a talking machine. Ahead of Real Madrid's competitive debut this weekend, the Portuguese coach praised reigning champions Barcelona and then delivered a barb aimed at their young star Lamine Yamal, saying in effect that he would not want the teenager in his own dressing room. It is classic Mourinho: a compliment wrapped around a needle.

Barcelona open the defense of their title this weekend as well, and Madrid have overhauled the squad and turned again to Mourinho with the stated goal of winning trophies. For a while over the summer he had seemed a more measured version of himself. As the games get closer, the older, sharper edition is resurfacing.

US coaches should read this less as gossip and more as a psychological opening move. Mourinho is doing what he has always done: setting the emotional temperature of a rivalry before a ball is kicked, framing his own team as the challenger with nothing to lose, and putting a target on the other side's best young player. Whether you love it or hate it, it is a deliberate tool.

The oldest trick in the rivalry

Praising the opponent while jabbing at their star does two things at once. It lowers the pressure on your own group by casting the other team as the standard everyone is chasing, and it drops a small stone into the shoe of a young player who now has to answer for a headline he did not create. A 17 or 18-year-old prodigy is a natural target because he is the one player who cannot yet fully ignore the noise.

That is exactly why the tactic is worth understanding rather than copying. Your best under-16 who reads about himself, whether it is praise or provocation, is more likely to press for a hero moment, drift out of his role, or lose his head when an opponent gets under his skin. The gifted young player is both your biggest weapon and your most manageable liability.

What to do with your own Lamine

If you coach a standout kid, protect his focus. Talk to him in advance about how opponents and even other coaches will try to bait him, and rehearse the boring answer: do your job, let the goals do the talking, and never respond to the guy trying to provoke you. Teach him that the highest compliment is being singled out as the danger, and that the correct reply is a good performance, not a reaction.

For the rest of your group, use it as a lesson in composure. Set up small-sided games where one team is allowed light gamesmanship, chirping, slow restarts, standing over the ball, and score not just goals but how the other side keeps its discipline. Players who learn to stay calm when someone is working them will save you red cards and dumb fouls all season.

Mourinho's line will be forgotten within a week if Madrid and Barcelona both win their openers. But the machinery behind it, the way a smart operator manages pressure by moving it onto the other team's youngest shoulders, is something you will see at every level of the sport, including your own touchline. Better to name it than be surprised by it.

The two clubs will not meet for months. The mind games, as ever, started early.