Pep Guardiola took his seat at the Santiago Bernabéu, looked up at the cameras pointing his way from the back of the room, asked which one was José Mourinho’s and, concluding that they must all be, began. It was the eve of the 2011 Champions League semi-final and Guardiola came out fighting. What followed was a long, pointed monologue aimed at his adversary, a settling of scores with a touch of the title weigh-in about it. “In this [press] room, he is the puto jefe, the puto amo – the fucking boss, the fucking master,” Guardiola insisted. “And I don’t want to compete with him for a moment.”
Now he will have to, all over again. José Mourinho versus Pep Guardiola has moved to Manchester. “I know him and he knows me,” Guardiola said that night. They had worked together at Barcelona, captain and assistant coach; had faced each other as managers on either side of the clásico divide; and briefly met when Chelsea played Bayern Munich in the 2013 European Super Cup; this time they share a city, a rivalry renewed. The two biggest names, elevated to comic-book or cinematic status. “Ah, Mr Pep, we meet again … ” perhaps, or, “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us”.
It almost feels as if it had to be this way; that once City got Guardiola, United had to get his arch enemy, a counter-reaction for every reaction; as if this was a decision driven by personality and status. Opposites who attract. On some basic, emotional level: if City have a big name, United have to have a bigger one. On a footballing one: if City have Guardiola, United have to seek out a guarantee, the one man who can stop him. There may be others who could, of course, but that is how it is set up. And so the pattern is repeated. When Madrid signed Mourinho in the summer of 2010 his mission was simple: to defeat Guardiola and bring down Barcelona.
The mission stood before him daily. A life-sized cardboard cut-out used to be propped up in Mourinho’s office at Valdebebas depicting him sprinting across the Camp Nou turf, finger in the air, celebrating at the end of the 2010 Champions League semi-final. Internazionale had reached the final, Barcelona had not. For Madrid, there was relief and revelation: Mourinho had rescued them from watching the Catalan club lift the trophy at the Bernabéu. Now he had to complete the job. The plan was one with which United are familiar: to knock their rivals off their perch.
So Mourinho set about waging war, on and off the pitch. Conflict was his cause and it became increasingly personal. Perhaps it always had been: even Guardiola had told Barcelona’s president Joan Laporta that it would be easier to make Mourinho Barça manager in 2008, but he had been chosen instead. Mourinho, who once declared that Barcelona would be “for ever” in his heart, wanted the job. Then there was the task before him, an enormous one requiring shock tactics: Guardiola’s team had won the treble in 2009 and the league in 2010. Only he had prevented them reaching a second successive European Cup final.
Mourinho sought to break up the relationship that had built between Madrid and Barcelona players who had just won the 2010 World Cup together with Spain, telling them that he had been there and he knew that their Catalan colleagues hated Spain and would never truly be their friends. He bemoaned referees and committees, favourable fixtures and even teams that did not try; in short, a campaign against his club. Somehow Madrid and Mourinho were projected as the powerless little man, the victims.
His campaign against Barcelona was relentless – even if he rarely referred to them by name, preferring to cite “other clubs”. He attacked their elevation to untouchable status and their image as the game’s good guys, their projection of themselves as the sole defenders of “football”, as if no other style was legitimate. He railed against their “purity” and blamelessness. He accused them of diving and pressuring officials, who favoured them. He insisted that, behind the
No comments:
Post a Comment