The Special One: The Dark Side of Jose Mourinho

by Torres, Diego

  Wolfgang Stark had simply rigorously applied FIFA Rule 12, which considers the showing of a straight red card in cases of serious foul play in the following terms: ‘A player is guilty of serious foul play if he uses excessive force or brutality against an opponent when challenging for the ball in play. A tackle that endangers the safety of an opponent must be sanctioned as serious foul play.’ The rule does not say that physical contact is a prerequisite for imposing the sanction.

  Inspired by their coach, Madrid filed a misconduct complaint against Guardiola and eight of the Barcelona players to the Control and Disciplinary Committee of UEFA. The short statement argued that, following a ‘preconceived tactic’, Guardiola, and his players Alves, Pedro, Busquets, Piqué, Mascherano, Pinto, Valdés and Keita, ‘persistently simulated aggression with the sole purpose of misleading the referee, which led to the manifestly unjust decision to send off Pepe’. The appeal was dismissed. On hearing of the rejection, Pérez broke down. According to a witness, he ignored his lawyers when they told him of the weakness of the evidence Madrid had provided. The president did not believe in legal arguments. He believed in his coach, and said, with considerable force, that the tape submitted to UEFA provided irrefutable evidence of both Barcelona’s violations and Pepe’s innocence:

  ‘But the video is perfect! It proves everything! They should ban half the Barcelona team!’

  Ronaldo ended the game enraged. He was just as annoyed with the referee as with his coach, whose tactical plan had left him so isolated that over the course of the entire game he was unable to get one shot on target from open play: just one free-kick against the wall and a shot that deflected off a defender. His frustration was compounded by Messi’s goals; Messi had it all handed to him on a plate, in his view, by the attacking football from Barcelona that so benefited him. When Mourinho asked Ronaldo to face the press and denounce the conspiracy, he by and large followed the script:

  ‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand why in all qualifying Champions League games Barça end up playing against 10 men. Arsenal, Chelsea, Inter … Every year the same thing. Mourinho is right. The people at Barcelona have a lot of power, and not just on the field – off it too. Barcelona scored their goals against us playing 10 men. Perhaps we didn’t have a good game. But nothing was happening. Was 0–0 a bad result? 0–0 would have been a good result. We had a strategy. Kaká was warming up to come on for the final minutes. We were going to attack. Football is like that. Strategies. After a 0–0, in Barcelona they’d have to attack us and we could play them on the counter-attack … As an attacker I don’t like to play that way, but I have to adapt to what the team asks from me.’

  Sensitive to the more subtle signs of insubordination, Mourinho felt that with his last remark Ronaldo had betrayed him. When they met again in Valdebebas the following day neither greeted the other. Mutually offended by various little niggling disputes, they did not even look at one another. The squad’s return to training meant a reawakening of their deep-rooted malaise against the coach. Casillas and Ramos headed the large group of players who claimed that approaching games with the aim of getting a 0–0 was ‘a disgrace’. A tactical and aesthetic error. They were supported by Benzema, Özil, Higuaín, Ronaldo, Alonso, Arbeloa, Marcelo and Kaká. The Brazilian, who had felt marginalised for the previous three months, could not believe that Mourinho really saw him as the catalyst for defeating Barcelona.

  ‘We are Real Madrid!’ they repeated, as if the historical ideals of the club were being betrayed. What hurt them above all was that Mourinho’s plan suggested he lacked faith in their potential. They felt slighted; play like the coach wants, and we’ll only win by some fluke. That, or we’ll lose as a small team loses. ‘Playing that way, it’s as if we’re all useless,’ they said. ‘Mourinho only thinks of himself.’

  Mourinho did not pick Ronaldo to face Real Zaragoza on Saturday 30 May. When, on the Friday, the striker found out he was not in the team he felt like he was being punished, and began banging the lockers and the walls. ‘Son of a bitch,’ he shouted. ‘Son of a bitch.’ He was beside himself. The coach, who felt betrayed by the statement that Ronaldo had made after the last clásico, had sidelined him, knowing that there was nothing that made him suffer more. When it came to taking advantage of a crisis to accrue more power, Mourinho had few rivals. The exemplary nature of correcting the principal star of the squad was the most influential message he could send out to his players. If he could send his top player to the dungeons, others would do well to take note of the consequences of defying his attempts to make everyone sing from the same hymn sheet.

  Mourinho knew that there were grudges festering between Ronaldo and the Spanish players over the alleged favouritism enjoyed by the forward. Some interpreted Mourinho’s dropping of Ronaldo as being the coach trying to curry favour with the Spanish sector. But the real difference between Ronaldo and the rest lay in the nature of Ronaldo’s friendship with his agent. He only had to make a call to complain to Mendes and the agent interceded on his behalf – and no one was able to persuade Mourinho like Mendes. Ronaldo’s call to Mendes had a lasting effect. Ronaldo never suffered a similar punishment in the two years he remained under Mourinho’s orders. Others were not so fortunate.

  Easter Sunday came on 1 May. Upon reaching Valdebebas the players were summoned by Mourinho to the dressing room and all the support staff – kit-men, masseurs and medical staff – were asked to leave and close the door behind them, as they were suspected of leaking information to the press. Only the coach, his assistants, the players and Zinedine Zidane remained. The former French footballer had started working in a liaison role between management and the coaching staff, in the vacuum left by Jorge Valdano, who had been relieved by Mourinho of his former functions as a bridge between the offices of the club and the team. Mourinho began by saying that, without asking for it from the club, they had called him to announce their firmest support:

  ‘The club supports me. The club has gone against UEFA because it’s with me. But the videos that have been sent are nothing to do with me. That’s an initiative of the club …’

  Casillas listened, sitting on a bench to one side, looking down at his lap. Sour-faced, he followed Mourinho from the corner of his eye. The coach outlined his plan for the visit to the Camp Nou on Tuesday 3 May:

  ‘We’ll go out to play a calm game. To wait. We must defend very near the area with a low-block so the game ends 0–0. If it ends 0–0 we can say that the tie was decided by the referee in the first leg.’

  The players exchanged looks of disbelief.

  ‘At Barcelona we have three options: two impossible and one possible. The only possible option is that the game ends with a close result and we lose the tie. Of the two impossible choices, the first is that they thrash us. This must be avoided at all costs so we can blame the referees. This can never happen. The other impossible choice is to win the tie. If, in trying to preserve the 0–0 we end up going to the final by chance, then perfect. But the priority is to finish with a close score so that we can blame the referees. A 2–1, 1–0, a draw … this will be enough to say that we were robbed at the Bernabéu.’

  Mourinho tried to convince his team that they should lose the tie in a calculated way. He invited them to turn the game into a dialectical argument – this would provide him with a propaganda weapon that, with his rhetorical powers, he could then wield to devastating effect. He continued, with nobody interrupting him:

  ‘Real Madrid have hired the best lawyers in the world, and I have it from a good source that after the semi-finals they’ll make it public that they are going to ban Alves for two games for play-acting and Busquets five games for racism, and the great Pep … because this one believes that he’s great … they’re going to give him two games. Maybe he’ll get three for being the boss of the teatreros (play-actors), for encouraging all this theatre. I can assure you. That’s why we need to get a close result. Because then I’ll go in front of the press and say that the tie was lost at t
he Bernabéu and the media will agree with me that they robbed us. But if they give us a beating then we’ll be left looking ridiculous in the eyes of world football, because the next day the media will say: “Where are the referees, Mourinho? Where are the referees, players of Madrid?”’

  Mourinho was so engrossed in his own world that the players heard him make a slip in talking about himself, revealing that his real concern was his own personal prestige. He immediately amended what he had said to include ‘players of Madrid’. Those who heard the speech and then reconstructed it described the situation as ‘incredible’ and ‘amazing’, but did not dare say anything at the time.

  The reaction of the players was mixed. Some tried to show that they had been moved. Pepe, Di María, Alonso and Granero seemed convinced, Granero saying approvingly, ‘How clever …’ There were also the sceptics and those who were indifferent, such as Adebayor, Carvalho, Lass and Khedira. A group remained that were outraged – Casillas, Ramos, Arbeloa, Higuaín and, above all, Ronaldo. They believed that Mourinho was prepared to chuck the tie out with the rubbish just so that he could justify 15 minutes of craziness in the press conference room at the Bernabéu. He hoped that Barça, on seeing them sitting so deep, would sign the armistice. But that was not enough. A mere act of collective obedience served no purpose. Mourinho wanted to convince his players that it was best for everyone to surrender, following his instructions, because in this way no one would be accountable. On the contrary, in the eyes of the fans they would be free of any responsibility because they would be presented as martyrs, their sacrifice serving to expose to the world the truth about Barcelona:

  ‘This is the team of the beautiful game. We must fight to reveal exactly who they are. So that on a global scale everyone knows that the pretty boys of world football play dirty, which is what they do. There they are, Alves, Busquets … How can we prove that they play dirty? By getting a close result …’

  Leaning forward, Casillas held the edge of the bench with his left hand as if to twist it off. He passed his right hand across his face while shaking his head. Not a single player questioned the coach. No one opened his mouth to ask for explanations, as if there were no doubts, as if everything were obvious and reasonable. Having finished his tactical-political speech, Mourinho turned to Ronaldo and questioned him in front of everyone:

  ‘You, Cris! Come here so that I can tell you something. I’m going to say it to your face: you complain that we play defensively. But do you know why we play this way? For you. Because, as you don’t want to defend or cover the wings, I have to have the team sitting deep. You get upset because I didn’t bring you on in Bilbao, because when you come on you do your own thing. To achieve your own personal goals. And perhaps I’m to blame for that for allowing you to do it. But you concentrate on your game. Then you go to the media and, instead of doing what you have to do, you criticise us for being defensive. You know what you should have done? Criticise the referee. Think of me, think of the team!’

  Ronaldo stirred and gesticulated, cursing in a strong Portuguese accent, attempting to cut Mourinho off. But he could not:

  ‘I have to look after you because you’re my brother’s brother, and when someone is their brother’s brother, that makes them a brother as well. But the other day instead of doing what I told you, you went and criticised my tactics. You criticised me! You don’t respect your team-mates. You’re watching them run. You’re watching the way that Pepe and Lass are running, and you raise your hands to protest that the ball is not reaching you. You could be a better team-mate and, instead of raising your hands, go out into the press area and talk about the referee. Because I’ve invented this system for you, so that you’re comfortable, and you don’t have to run and you score goals. It’s your fault that we play this way. If you concentrate on running in behind Alves you let him run away free. What is it? You think that Di María is less than you?’

  Ronaldo was not to be discouraged and started yelling in Portuguese. He demanded that Mourinho tell him what the hell he had said, he accused him of misrepresentation, mixing up events that had no connection in order to manipulate things for his own convenience. The shouting grew louder, so that it became hard to hear who was saying quite what. Ronaldo, stunned, then blinded by anger; Mourinho colder, but still articulate:

  ‘You, right now, don’t love me. You’ll talk badly about me. But I love you because you’re my brother’s brother. If you’re not clear about that, I am. What my brother asks me to do, I do. I’ve given everything for you. Now you ought to do the same for me.’

  The meeting came to a close after 40 minutes when Zidane, who had kept himself in the background, looking very serious, was invited by the coach to say what he thought. The Frenchman nonchalantly contradicted what he had just heard:

  ‘You’re very good players and you should try to beat Barcelona. We are Real Madrid and Real Madrid always go out to win.’

  Mourinho threw Zidane an indignant look before leaving the dressing room. (A month went by before the Frenchman returned to Valdebebas, to hold a lengthy discussion with Mourinho. In the dressing room they believed he had been reprimanded for not supporting the coach’s position.)

  Ronaldo stayed in the dressing room bad-mouthing in Portuguese. He had been the only one who had dared to respond to Mourinho during the 40 minutes that he took to give his speech. ‘How this son of a bitch has sold me out’, they heard him shout.

  Kaká was the only one to confess that he did not understand whose family was constantly being referred to by the coach. To find out he asked Higuaín, one of his close friends.

  ‘Who is his brother?’

  ‘The brother is Jorge Mendes,’ Higuaín told him.

  The players could not believe what they had just witnessed. ‘This is shit!’ they said. They agreed that if their careers lasted another 100 years they would struggle to ever experience anything even half as strange as this. Going out on to the field they questioned each other in whispers, trying to work out whether everyone had understood the same thing: ‘They had to prepare to lose.’ Then there was the open confession, with no scruples whatsoever, that the coach had plotted with Mendes, his ‘brother’. They recalled that he dared to say that he had changed the tactical model to satisfy his ‘brother’ and agent. But now the needs had changed and this invited him to change the pieces on the board. ‘He’s given us Cristiano’s head,’ someone said. ‘He wants to make new friends.’

  Ronaldo went out on to the pitch, took a ball, and kicked it so hard that he sent it flying high out of the enclosure. Then he went to the physiotherapy room and had a massage.

  Casillas confessed to a friend in the club that he had never felt so embarrassed. He could not get out of his head the image of his former coach, Bernd Schuster, who was fired in the winter of 2008 for publicly saying, on the eve of a clásico, that it was not possible to win at the Camp Nou.

  Zidane contacted Pérez that same Sunday to tell him what had happened at the meeting. Club sources say that the president did not like what he heard. The senior players waited for a call from the president, thinking that Pérez would overrule the coach and ask them to try by all means possible to win the tie. The team travelled to Barcelona on 2 May without receiving any such order and stayed at the Hotel Juan Carlos I. Mourinho insisted that they should be concentrating on defending their goal. Nothing about planning a comeback.

  He met with the president at the hotel but there was no change of plans. No one knows what Pérez said. Then it was time to go to the stadium. Uncertainty reigned. Casillas waited for a call, a signal, a message to force the issue. Compelled to show his hand, Pérez made the choice that would characterise what remained of his mandate: backing Mourinho to the end. The president had decided to use Mourinho as the figurehead of his project long before that trip to the Camp Nou. By the time the team took the team bus to the game, the die was cast. Mourinho, suspended by UEFA, decided to stay in the hotel and watch the match on TV.

  For a long time afte
rwards, Madrid employees on this trip recalled Casillas’s distress in the bus on the way to the stadium. No Mourinho, and Aitor Karanka silent in the front seat. The captain called his team-mates to the back, then told them to try to win the game. He asked them to respect the agreed tactics but to forget to take as many precautions and dare to attack Barça without inhibition, thereby going against the strict orders of Mourinho, someone with more power in the club than anyone in his position since Muñoz:

  ‘Come on! We’ve got to go out to win. We have to respect the formation but our attitude has to be to try to win the tie,’ Casillas shouted. ‘It has to be seen that we’re trying to win the game. They have to see that!’

  Casillas said to his team-mates that they could tell the press what the coach had instructed them to say, but that on the pitch they should not surrender, adding that if they closed up shop they would look incompetent to the watching world. Huddled around him, everyone agreed.

  Caught out by Madrid’s sense of adventure at the start of the match, Barcelona failed to impose themselves on the game. But despite the creativity of players like Kaká, Higuaín, Ronaldo, Di María and Marcelo, Madrid’s play failed to result in goals and their improvised tactics eventually faltered. Both teams failed to make the final ball count and the game finished 1–1. Manchester United – and ultimately the title of Champions of Europe – awaited Barcelona at Wembley.

  UEFA did not fine Guardiola or any of his players. Quite the opposite. A Madrid director consulted Ángel María Villar, president of the Spanish Football Federation, on the chance of doing something about the appeal. Villar said that the best Madrid could do was to rid themselves of their coach. He warned that complaining was a mistake because UEFA thought that what Mourinho had implied was that their most prestigious competition – and their main source of income – was not clean. It was a head-on attack on the credibility of their organisation. The same competition that had enabled Mourinho to become a internationally known reference point in world football was now the subject of a complaint by the coach, with the formal backing of his club.