Why Real Madrid should be delighted to see the back of José Mourinho

02 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment

by representingthemambo in Football, Individuals worthy of contempt, Opinions

Real Madrid look set to win La Liga this season. Given that they’re competing against probably the strongest Barcelona team in history, such a triumph will constitute a remarkable achievement. Despite that, manager José Mourinho seems unlikely to be tainting the Bernabéu dugout come the start of next season. For Mourinho, it appears, is afflicted with a disordered desire to be loved; for all that surrounds him to be cast in his image and for unswerving subjugation from those under his cretinous command. Cheerfully, by many in Madrid, Mourinho is not loved.

Admired for the ruthless, relentless consistency of his results, the Portuguese is nevertheless castigated for his cowardice when confronted by Barcelona. Often giving the impression that he’d happily toss a baby to heavy traffic should he believe it would heighten his hopes of personal success, Mourinho’s Madrid have habitually regressed into violence and negativity in the forlorn fancy of overthrowing the Catalans. Such an approach would perhaps be pragmatic at most clubs but not at Madrid and especially not at this Madrid. With a squad assembled for grotesquely exorbitant fees containing 2 players for whom the Spaniards have broken (their own) record transfer fee, fans have a right to pine for a preservation of their club’s proud tradition for stylish, expressive football. Inevitably, for Mourinho such sentiments are frivolous as he has instead insisted on instilling a poisonous, odious atmosphere where casual brutality is encouraged and football treated with tired indifference.

Of course, Florentino Pérez, Madrid’s president, knew what he was getting when hiring Mourinho. Machiavellian proclivities have smeared his career, whilst the arrogance and bravado that remained bizarrely enthralling to the British press masked only a propensity for prosaic football with the focus very much on athleticism rather than artistry. Pérez, the man who brought the absurdly quixotic and reckless galáctico policy to a club whose history and image twice precipitated the dismissal of Fabio Capello for the Italian’s perceived defensive leanings, nevertheless deemed Mourinho in possession of sufficient dignity and class to preside over Madrid’s brand. In selling his soul to the devil, Pérez deserves the discord Mourinho has predictably delivered to the Spanish capital.

The vindictive jealousy recently reported in the Portuguese’s paranoid proclamation that Sergio Ramos and Iker Casillas receive favourable press coverage as ‘you Spaniards have been world champions’ says much about his insecurties and obsession with his own public portrayal. That Ramos saw fit to retort with a withering dismissal of his manager’s non-existent playing career speaks of the disillusion of being confronted by a man whose pettiness and petulence sees him seek to attack others amidst criticism of personal decisions and whose re-active tactical tendancies teetered embarrassingly towards truculence.

Although widely judged to be a fine man-manager whose presence engenders great loyalty from his charges, Mourinho’s allies have often been those cut from the same crooked cloth as himself. If character can be determined by the company one keeps, appreciative relationships with the vain, avaricious and arrogant ilk of John Terry, Didier Drogba, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, Wesley Sneijder and Marco Materazzi are damning indictments on Mourinho. The procurement of a wholly unjustified, senselessly suspicious ‘siege mentality’ may work at Chelsea and Internazionale, clubs with hitherto endemic dispositions towards underachievement but such crass conventions are not transferrable to Madrid, where glory is viewed as institutionalised. Culturally, the English and Italians are generally content to accept that the end will justify the means and so the joyless, muscular counter-attacking of Mourinho found favour. In Spain, such a compromise is less readily reconciled. Especially in Madrid.

Statistically, Mourinho’s Madrid are a formidable attacking force. And of course, they are…on the break. Illustrative of the Portuguese’s preference for the prosaic was his repulsive ridiculing of Karim Benzema last season, as the French forward’s subtlety was cruelly dismissed with the contemptuous denouncement that ‘if I can’t hunt with a dog, i’ll hunt with a cat.’ The inference that Benzema represented a last resort; a lightweight option was shamelessly and publicly manipulated by Mourinho as he callously pursued his bitter feud with sporting director, Jorge Valdano (a romantic who once compared a match between Liverpool and Mourinho’s Chelsea to a ‘shit on a stick’), in an attempt to persuade the Argentine to sanction the signing of a striker; a ‘dog of war.’ Inevitably, the scheming Mourinho got his wish and Benzema was subjected to his manager’s taunt that he had played only as he had ’nothing else’ as the vastly inferior Emmanuel Adebayor arrived on loan. Despite Mourinho insisting that ‘with a dog you hunt more and you hunt better,’ the Togan was, at best, a qualified success with typical inconsistency and indecisiveness dogging his time in the Spain. Contrastingly and to his immense credit, Benzema emerged to flourish the favour of his more feline refinement.

Lamentably however, Mourinho remains stubborn in his support of the aggressor over the artisan. This is the man who inconguously brought Sulley Muntari and McDonald Mariga to Inter Milan, the man who coached all the happiness from Joe Cole’s game, the man scornful of gifted techncians such as Esteban Granero and Pedro León and the man whose neglect has arrested the ascendency of the once precocious Sergio Canales, with the classy Nuri Sahin showing ominous signs of being the next inducted into Mourinho’s talent graveyard. Such a roll call is indicative of the Madrid boss’ insistence on control; players are not to think for themselves, he must think for them. Such rigidity is an affront to the culture of Los Blancos, whose identity is resides in the floating, elusive skein infused by the iconic Alfredo Di Stéfano, whose ingenuinity has permeated the club’s philosophy for decades and manifest itself in a tradition of technical and pro-active football. Real Madrid may glisten with quality but the foundations remain a strong, pugnacious defence with the electrifying pace of Angel Di Maria and the physicality and infuriating selfishness of Cristiano Ronaldo providing thrust and incision on the counter-attack. True, the composure of Xabi Alonso offers far greater midfield control than Mourinho’s teams habitually care for, although Mesut Özil, perhaps the squad’s most naturally gifted footballer, whilst influential is rarely afforded 90 minutes.

Nevertheless, such concessions are cancelled come the Clasíco. Ironically, the man whose callow complaint introduced the phrase ‘parking the bus’ into English football’s lexicon has been conspicuously culpable of excessive caution when faced with his club’s bitterest rivals. The squalid hypocrisy of such actions is clearly distasteful yet it is his desire to transform an admittedly already hostile matchup into a revolting rampage of eye-guaging and violence, with as little football as possible that will perhaps be Mourinho’s legacy. His tutelage has provoked an acidic atmosphere so crackling with contempt and malevolence that at one point it had threatened to divide a Spanish national team bonded by the boundless joy delivered by the shared success of a World Cup victory along club allegiances. Barcelona brings out the worst in Mourinho. Perhaps the knowledge that in Catalonia he’ll never amount to more than Sir Bobby Robson’s translator gnaws not only at his prodigious ego but at his legion uncertainties. The man who has guided Madrid to La Liga’s summit has never been to the Camp Nou. It is a different Mourinho that faces Barcelona. A malignant, obnoxious, detestable Mourinho, yet one simultaneously consumed with fear, racked with doubt.

Unforgivably, this inbalance fathers an unstable team. Ramos’ disciplinary record was appalling far before his current manager’s rival whilst Pepe’s status as Europe’s most viscious and unhinged professional (the term ‘footballer’ seems inappropriate here) was crystallised by a savage attack on Getafe’s Javier Casquero during Juande Ramos’ reign, though Mourinho’s rabble-rousing does little to quell such volatile temperaments. In particular, Pepe’s cause has not been helped. Without the inclination or capacity to over-think things, the Brazilian-born bulldozer was always a likely liability if deployed out of position in midfield and instructed to disrupt Barcelona’s play by fair or foul means. But such is Mourinho’s wont. Despite knowing what to expect, it is a ploy he has returned to (in Clasícos only) and as such is complicit in his player’s sins, especially as such coarse means appear to be a genuine ‘tactic,’ with the persistent, systematic targeting of Lionel Messi’s genius a clear focus. Mourinho’s 10 Clasícos have yielded 7 red and 47 yellow cards for his team, a tally that could easily be higher whilst his opponents have averaged 65% possession. Essentially, against Barcelona, Real Madrid have spent more time kicking the opposition than they have kicking the ball.

Inevitably, their manager sees things rather differently. And incorrectly. Mourinho loves a conspiracy theory, loves to preposterously play the victim and loves to assert that the world is against him in spite of customarily presiding over the club with the greatest financial clout in their respective league. Maybe he suffers a persecution complex and peceptively, this is a deeply flawed individual, yet in all probability such scurrilous statements are the product of careful contrivance designed to disrupt opposition and pile pressure onto officials. Mourinho is aware of his own malice and delights in his insidious influence.

The aftermath of the recent 2-2 draw in Barcelona’s Camp Nou is testament to such underhand deception. True, Madrid had for once under Mourinho’s tutelage employed an adventurous approach, with Özil, Kaká, Ronaldo and Higuaín all starting yet only in the context of a home defeat in the tie’s opening leg which had accelerated a climate where the capital’s press, fans and (reportedly) players were questioning the team’s continued cravveness against the Catalans. Under such conditions Mourinho had little to lose; should they be beaten he could claim it as illustration of the folly in attacking a side of Barcelona’s exceptional talent, whilst victory would no doubt see him bask in the bravery of his speculation.

Astonishingly, though a draw signalled aggregate defeat, Mourinho had to gall to spin a phantasmic ‘moral victory,’ citing the handicap of a customary red card (this time awarded to Ramos) as evidence that it is ‘impossible to win here.’ Yes, that’s right, José, it’s all the referee’s fault. Big clubs like Real Madrid never receive the benefit of the doubt. Nevermind that Lassana Diarra, an archetypal Mourinho scrapper, should have been dismissed with the hosts 2-0 up (and that several others trood perilously close to eviction) or that, as usual, Barcelona had jeopardised possession, in the manager’s skewed, often surreal interpretation of his own tortured fortunes, blame is to be laid anywhere but at his doorstep. Unfortunately for Mourinho, his doorstep is blame’s natural habitat.

Madrid were vastly improved in that second leg and were ultimately punished for their profligacy (though their chances largely stemmed from uncharacteristic sloppiness from their adversaries, who nonetheless again exhibited greater cohesion) but an undertone of residual barbarism from the teams’ previous encounter lingered. Mourinho is a cunt who has disgraced himself and much more importantly (yes, José…) the image of Real Madrid with his purile politicking, brash arrogance and graceless defences intermittently throughout his tenure. However, when the spotlight truly falls upon him, his cautious, reactionary tactics and the naked violence encouraged (and at times enacted) by him have relegated what should be the greatest rivalry in world football into a ‘good vs evil’ pantomime, albeit one in which his rivals have often risen above. Indeed, such is the stark juxtaposition between the malevolence of Madrid and the beauty of Bacelona that any victory for Mourinho, quite apart from being moral, would be merely, miserably pyrrhic.

DC