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Real Madrid manager José Mourinho facing mission impossible as Portuguese struggles to catch Barcelona
José Mourinho suddenly resembles the man who cannot win even when he cannot stop winning.
Tough task: José Mourinho is left in Barcelona's slipstream Photo: AP
By Ian Chadband, Chief Sports Correspondent, in Madrid 11:36PM GMT 23 Jan 2011 Ian's Twitter
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On a bitingly cold night in the Spanish capital, his Real Madrid side prevailed yet again as they routinely do under his stewardship but still the sense of a futile chase seemed to hang in the chill Bernabéu air.
Playing catch up yet again, Mourinho’s men eked out an uneasy 1-0 win against Real Mallorca which keeps them clinging on in the pursuit of a great Barcelona side at the summit of La Liga. Whether it does anything to change the Special One’s mood and make his reign at the Bernabéu any more secure, nobody had much idea since the old mischief maker is beginning to move in his old mysterious ways.
One thing’s for sure; he never needed a win more urgently. Madrid were pretty poor by their standards and there was even a moment in the first half when Mallorca’s Emilio Nsue hit the post which had the faithful half-thinking the unthinkable, that Mourinho’s unbeaten league home record, stretching back 146 games with four clubs over nine years, might even be under threat.
Of course not. Mourinho’s monument, one of sport’s most extraordinary, lies in tact today as do his by now annual title ambitions, despite the fact that giving a team of Barcelona’s magnificence a four-point cushion — effectively five since head-to-head results now count ahead of than goal difference — must now feel like the most unfeasible mountaineering challenge of his career.
Indeed, if Mourinho was not Mourinho, couldn’t we feel a shred of sympathy for his current plight today? Er, not a universally popular thesis, I venture, but the Portuguese’s team have now played 32 games this season and been beaten just once in any meaningful match. Yet the extraordinary levels of impatience and expectation from his masters mean that such excellence, from a side newly fashioned in the summer, is still apparently not enough to satisfy President Florentino Perez and his cronies.
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The fans are with him, mind. True, having been here in August at the start of Mourinho’s reign and felt the huge anticipation surrounding his arrival, it did not feel too surprising to find how that enthusiasm has already waned amid the chastening realisation that dethroning Barcelona has to be more than a one-season project.
If they are already a bit wearied by the familiar political manoeuvrings and veiled threats that he might leave at the end of his first season, the crowd still do not seem to be blaming him. One banner draped across the stand last night read: “Bernabéu — with Mourinho to the death!” Whose death, however, was not specified.
The suggestion here is that it will either be Mourinho or director general Jorge Valdano who has to fall on his sword at the end of the season. The club, supposedly, isn’t big enough for the both of them, especially when Mourinho’s ego can fill up an 80,000-seater stadium, no bother.
It felt like we had been here before last night. Just as in Porto, Chelsea and Milan, unable to resist turning any little club drama into his own one-man show. His cue came when a questioner suggested that Real were close on the heels of one of the best teams ever, were in the Copa del Rey semis and were in the Champions League last 16. So how could he explain all the growing tension over his future?
Ooo, how he loved this. The pout, the half-smile, the feigned ignorance. “I don’t explain. I explain that the situation where we are is because we work well, we are good professionals and we want to succeed. The tension is not my tension, When you say the truth, people doesn’t understand…” There you had it; the cryptic, clear as mud finale.
You could say it can only suit Mourinho’s cause to paint himself as the wronged party, supposedly not given the necessary resources by his board to sign a new striker and with his work undermined by Valdano’s intervention, so that when Barcelona do romp away with La Liga, he has his ready-made excuses.
And there were a few fans I spoke to earlier who had expressed their disenchantment with how the cult of Mourinho’s personality seemingly eclipses everything else at the club. When asked about the banners of support, the great man sniffed: “I don’t like being singled out by the fans and I don’t need it.” Best laugh of the night, that; it is his oxygen.
Funnier still was that it should be the man supposedly at the nub of his differences with Valdano who should come to his rescue; step forward Karim Benzema.
Mourinho would rather have back a 34-year-old Bernabéu has-been, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, than trust in Benzema; Valdano has effectively been saying Mourinho should stop moaning about a lack of striking options when he is prepared to leave the French international on the bench as he did during last week’s calamitous draw with Almeria.
Here was supporting evidence for both views. For an hour, Benzema looked as frustrating as Mourinho evidently thinks he is, ungainly and cumbersome, symbolic of Madrid’s lethargy. Then, just as suddenly, he became the €35 million man. Found in the D and so stoutly patrolled there seemed no way through for him, a twinkletoe sidestep saw him shift on to his left foot and, bang, tension released.
Then, he regressed again, making Real rue two more of his fluffed chances along with Ronaldo’s late header against the bar, so that it eventually took Iker Casillas’s brilliant stop from Pierre Webo in the final seconds to ensure the title race is still alive today.
Another success then for Mourinho. Ho hum. Pity the only thing they can think of in the VIP tribune is the humiliation of that 5-0 shredding by Barca last November. For therein lies Mourinho’s problem.
His Real Madrid are not Barcelona, that’s his crime. It does not matter than no-one else’s team can bear comparison with Pep Guardiola’s creation either; the 'Special One’ was taken on for one reason only, seen as the ultimate quick fix in bringing to heel the best team Europe have witnessed for a generation.
And when the magic remedy doesn’t work instantaneously, they want Mourinho to give the keys back. It is absurd, really; if they are not prepared to give the greatest coach in the game the time and resources to institute his revolution in his own way, then who would they ever trust to do so? Nobody, of course.
They don’t want a revolution at all but they could get a fight, though. The defiant look on Mourinho’s face last night told of a man who is never knowingly beaten. Not yet anyway.
José Mourinho suddenly resembles the man who cannot win even when he cannot stop winning.
Tough task: José Mourinho is left in Barcelona's slipstream Photo: AP By Ian Chadband, Chief Sports Correspondent, in Madrid 11:36PM GMT 23 Jan 2011 Ian's Twitter
5 Comments
On a bitingly cold night in the Spanish capital, his Real Madrid side prevailed yet again as they routinely do under his stewardship but still the sense of a futile chase seemed to hang in the chill Bernabéu air.
Playing catch up yet again, Mourinho’s men eked out an uneasy 1-0 win against Real Mallorca which keeps them clinging on in the pursuit of a great Barcelona side at the summit of La Liga. Whether it does anything to change the Special One’s mood and make his reign at the Bernabéu any more secure, nobody had much idea since the old mischief maker is beginning to move in his old mysterious ways.
One thing’s for sure; he never needed a win more urgently. Madrid were pretty poor by their standards and there was even a moment in the first half when Mallorca’s Emilio Nsue hit the post which had the faithful half-thinking the unthinkable, that Mourinho’s unbeaten league home record, stretching back 146 games with four clubs over nine years, might even be under threat.
Of course not. Mourinho’s monument, one of sport’s most extraordinary, lies in tact today as do his by now annual title ambitions, despite the fact that giving a team of Barcelona’s magnificence a four-point cushion — effectively five since head-to-head results now count ahead of than goal difference — must now feel like the most unfeasible mountaineering challenge of his career.
Indeed, if Mourinho was not Mourinho, couldn’t we feel a shred of sympathy for his current plight today? Er, not a universally popular thesis, I venture, but the Portuguese’s team have now played 32 games this season and been beaten just once in any meaningful match. Yet the extraordinary levels of impatience and expectation from his masters mean that such excellence, from a side newly fashioned in the summer, is still apparently not enough to satisfy President Florentino Perez and his cronies.
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15 Jan 2011
The fans are with him, mind. True, having been here in August at the start of Mourinho’s reign and felt the huge anticipation surrounding his arrival, it did not feel too surprising to find how that enthusiasm has already waned amid the chastening realisation that dethroning Barcelona has to be more than a one-season project.
If they are already a bit wearied by the familiar political manoeuvrings and veiled threats that he might leave at the end of his first season, the crowd still do not seem to be blaming him. One banner draped across the stand last night read: “Bernabéu — with Mourinho to the death!” Whose death, however, was not specified.
The suggestion here is that it will either be Mourinho or director general Jorge Valdano who has to fall on his sword at the end of the season. The club, supposedly, isn’t big enough for the both of them, especially when Mourinho’s ego can fill up an 80,000-seater stadium, no bother.
It felt like we had been here before last night. Just as in Porto, Chelsea and Milan, unable to resist turning any little club drama into his own one-man show. His cue came when a questioner suggested that Real were close on the heels of one of the best teams ever, were in the Copa del Rey semis and were in the Champions League last 16. So how could he explain all the growing tension over his future?
Ooo, how he loved this. The pout, the half-smile, the feigned ignorance. “I don’t explain. I explain that the situation where we are is because we work well, we are good professionals and we want to succeed. The tension is not my tension, When you say the truth, people doesn’t understand…” There you had it; the cryptic, clear as mud finale.
You could say it can only suit Mourinho’s cause to paint himself as the wronged party, supposedly not given the necessary resources by his board to sign a new striker and with his work undermined by Valdano’s intervention, so that when Barcelona do romp away with La Liga, he has his ready-made excuses.
And there were a few fans I spoke to earlier who had expressed their disenchantment with how the cult of Mourinho’s personality seemingly eclipses everything else at the club. When asked about the banners of support, the great man sniffed: “I don’t like being singled out by the fans and I don’t need it.” Best laugh of the night, that; it is his oxygen.
Funnier still was that it should be the man supposedly at the nub of his differences with Valdano who should come to his rescue; step forward Karim Benzema.
Mourinho would rather have back a 34-year-old Bernabéu has-been, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, than trust in Benzema; Valdano has effectively been saying Mourinho should stop moaning about a lack of striking options when he is prepared to leave the French international on the bench as he did during last week’s calamitous draw with Almeria.
Here was supporting evidence for both views. For an hour, Benzema looked as frustrating as Mourinho evidently thinks he is, ungainly and cumbersome, symbolic of Madrid’s lethargy. Then, just as suddenly, he became the €35 million man. Found in the D and so stoutly patrolled there seemed no way through for him, a twinkletoe sidestep saw him shift on to his left foot and, bang, tension released.
Then, he regressed again, making Real rue two more of his fluffed chances along with Ronaldo’s late header against the bar, so that it eventually took Iker Casillas’s brilliant stop from Pierre Webo in the final seconds to ensure the title race is still alive today.
Another success then for Mourinho. Ho hum. Pity the only thing they can think of in the VIP tribune is the humiliation of that 5-0 shredding by Barca last November. For therein lies Mourinho’s problem.
His Real Madrid are not Barcelona, that’s his crime. It does not matter than no-one else’s team can bear comparison with Pep Guardiola’s creation either; the 'Special One’ was taken on for one reason only, seen as the ultimate quick fix in bringing to heel the best team Europe have witnessed for a generation.
And when the magic remedy doesn’t work instantaneously, they want Mourinho to give the keys back. It is absurd, really; if they are not prepared to give the greatest coach in the game the time and resources to institute his revolution in his own way, then who would they ever trust to do so? Nobody, of course.
They don’t want a revolution at all but they could get a fight, though. The defiant look on Mourinho’s face last night told of a man who is never knowingly beaten. Not yet anyway.