"What's going on...? Wow, what a mess you've got going on there! Have you noticed how intelligent all the people applauding me are?" Pérez said as he answered the call.
He confirmed he was "absolutely delighted" with the result, and wasted little time turning to the subject the entire football world was waiting on.
"(Jose) Mourinho will come as soon as he can — he is very excited," Pérez said.
Pérez had already made the appointment explicit in his victory speech, telling the crowd at the Bernabéu: "We are proud to have the best players in the world, proud that one of the best coaches in the world is coming back — a Madridista like José Mourinho. Have no doubt about that."
The appointment had been an open secret for weeks. According to The Athletic's David Ornstein, Mourinho had already signed a three-year contract before the election took place, contingent on Pérez winning the vote. During the campaign, Pérez posted a video in which Mourinho appeared in a Real Madrid shirt and answered a single question with a single word: "Yes."
With Pérez claiming 65 per cent of the ballot against challenger Enrique Riquelme, the final condition was cleared.
On the Chiringuito call, Pérez was in no mood for diplomatic restraint. He described the election campaign as a movement he had been tracking for some time — one involving collaboration with certain media outlets — and said calling the vote had been the right call.
"It was a movement I was already detecting, in collaboration with some media outlets," he said. "And I said, 'come on, let's all come out', and here everyone has come out. So — calm down, not me, but the Real Madrid members."
Asked whether he had taken a risk by calling the election without having won LaLiga or the Champions League, he was dismissive.
"They have voted for me at every table and they have voted for me of all ages. All the people who know me love me," he said. "I don't come here because I come to sign I don't know who — that was 26 years ago, but not now."
Asked directly whether Enrique Riquelme had been a good opponent, Pérez paused and replied: "I don't know — I don't know him." Pedrerol laughed.
Mourinho returns to the Bernabéu more than thirteen years after his first spell ended in 2013, having spent the 2025-26 season at Benfica. He takes over a club that dismissed Xabi Alonso in January after just seven months, handed the reins to reserve team manager Álvaro Arbeloa as a stopgap, and ended a second consecutive season without a major trophy.
Pérez has never lacked conviction. He defended his record, declared his intention to fight for the club against anyone seeking "to usurp it by strange procedures," and signed off with the confidence of a man who never really believed the result was in doubt.
The Special One is coming home. The question now is whether he can still deliver.