Jose Mourinho’s Reign at Real is All but Over – What Happened?

After three years in charge of Los Blancos, Jose Mourinho will bid farewell to his tumultuous and inglorious time in Madrid.

In those three years, Mourinho won the league, the Copa del Rey, and the Supercopa. Although three trophies in three seasons would make 98 percent of professional football managers and their supporters ecstatic, Mourinho’s haul with Real will be remembered as an underachievement.

When he first arrived to arguably the most popular club in the world in 2010, the expectations were very high. He was coming off a monumental treble winning season with Inter. In Spain, he was expected to equal the feat. His primary obligations were to secure Madrid their first Champions League since 2002, and knock the terrorizing and dominant Barcelona off the top of the league.  

In his three years with Real, Jose Mourinho came close to winning Europe, but never succeeded. He beat Barcelona to the domestic title in 2011, but lost out to them the other two years. Fundamentally, his time at the Bernabeu has left ‘The Special One’ with his smallest trophy haul at any time in his career since his humble beginnings at Leiria and Benfica in Portugal’s Primeira Divisão. His tenure at Real however, will not be remembered for the lack of silverware. It will be remembered for his inability to definitively trump Barcelona at home and abroad, for his erratic behaviour, and the in-house fighting with administration and players.

When Jose Mourinho arrived in Madrid, he was expected to eclipse Barcelona’s dominance domestically and in Europe. He was given a squad with deep talent and a fair amount of money to buy the supplementary players he felt would be able to accomplish this deed. In the subsequent season in 2010-2011, Mournho’s Real Madrid finished a disappointing second place to Pep Guardiola’s Barca. The failure to win the league in his first season as Madrid boss was magnified by a humiliating 5-0 defeat in the Camp Nou.

Mourinho was only able to beat Barca to the Spanish crown in only one of his three seasons on the Castillan side of the Iberian peninsula. The other two seasons he has resided in Barcelona’s shadow. Even though Real has bettered Barcelona this year in head to head matchups, including an impressive victory in the Camp Nou, Barca has captured their domestic title with ease, leaving Mourinho trophy-less for the first time since his last season with Chelsea, which he never finished due to unresolvable differences with Roman Abramovich.

To add to Mourinho’s inability to perform and win at the level he has established for himself, his time in the Spanish capital has been marred with petty behaviour and glimpses of a shallow, weak man.

Real Madrid is a club that prides itself on its elitism and elegance. It is the world’s richest team and Spain’s most successful club. It is self-defined as a gentleman’s organization that enjoys its status as a quiet symbol of Spanish federalism. The club demands that all personnel respect their values and self-anointed characteristics by upholding the sophistication of the club’s identity, personified through their emblematic white kits.

It is funny then that Real Madrid would decide to invest so heavily in Jose Mourinho, a manager who is mired in constant controversy, psychological mind games, and pretty much any tactic that garners him an edge in competition.

Real Madrid are the Japanese of football; respectful, proud, elegant, determined, and always a world power.

Jose Mourinho on the other hand is quite different. He is arrogant, witty, temperamental, strategizing, and a winner at all costs.

It is only natural that there would be conflicts between the desired identity of the club and Mourinho’s real bahaviour. On several occasions, Mourinho has done things that have made the Madrid board regret their decision, and implore their Public Relations team to right the image they want projected to the rest of the world. 

Part of Jose Mourinho’s regiment is to distract the attention from his players in the media, allowing them to properly focus and train for the games. He provides news sources with stories that focus on his wild quotes and perspectives, thereby deflecting any distractions from players. This is a well noted tactic of his.

If that were it, I believe Mourinho’s relationship with the Real hierarchy and its supporters would not be so strained, however the Portuguese manager displayed other behaviours and moments of poor judgment that would slowly deplete his adoration from fans and backing from his superiors.

He can be quite calm at times, however, like all humans, emotion could get the best of Jose, and naturally, this conflicts with Madrid’s desired image as a callous weakness not fit for a club and institution of their stature.

Throughout Mourinho’s career, he has been seen to emphatically celebrate vital goals and victories with long runs along the sideline, extravagant slides on his knees, and leaps into his players arms as if he had provided the assist, usually enraging the opposition and their supporters in the process. The rambunctious fans at Chelsea loved this. In Madrid, it was considered embarrassing.

His most embarrassing moments that caught the ire of the Madrid administration and faithful was his constant fighting with Pep Guardiola and Barcelona which hit its climax when Jose Mourinho poked the then Barca assistant, Tito Vilanova, in the eye.

Mourinho’s constant bickering with Guardiola through the media was perceived contradictory to Madrid’s expected behaviour. They want a diplomat, yet in Jose Mourinho they had an emotional man with an inflated ego who used the media to his advantage and as a platform to rile his opponents and express himself. Although many enjoy his repartee with the media, he did also physically attack an opposing coach in a petty and childish manner. It was a stupid thing to do; a revelation he expressed shortly before apologizing, however it was done and captured on camera and unfortunately may be the iconic image that resonates in his time with Real. If he isn’t remembered for that, then he will be for his highly publicized differences with the team’s biggest stars.

The latest knock on Jose Mourinho’s short dance with Real Madrid has been his much debated and widely broadcasted disputes with two of the club’s longest serving and most recognizable icons, goalkeeper Iker Casillas and defender, Sergio Ramos.

Although the players have not publically come out and stated their differences with their manager, there have been loud whispers throughout the media of their disenchantment with Mourinho.

The trouble stems from their being dropped out of the starting eleven at various points throughout the season. Mourinho believes in a squad built on competition. He has no favourites. He has said that he does not have a number one at any position. His number one, is whichever player starts the game. If you are in form and playing well, you play; if you are not, you sit.  

As two of Madrid’s Spanish icons and international heralds, Ramos and Casillas believed they deserve more respect and loyalty from their manager. The fans felt the same. Casillas is arguably the most respected Madrid player and the most coveted keeper in their history. The club and their supporters feel he is the best keeper in the world. Mourinho felt otherwise.

He is a manager who puts his best and most strategically superior team on the pitch each game. An error is never left unpunished and a poor performance is never forgotten without comment. Everyone is accountable and held to the same expectations.

Ramos and Casillas maybe feel exceptions should be made. They are international stars and domestic heroes. They are Madridistas who proudly personify Real’s personal philosophy. They are decorated elite athletes who a large public adores and with that, they have inflated egos and a sense of entitlement that is bolstered by those in the press box and the seats. With the supporters and the board on their side, Mourinho has been left looking like the petty villain, reduced to defend himself with the Real Madrid president in a clash of egos, yet another personal battle of his within the Real ranks.

Florentino Perez is one of Spain’s richest and most respected businessmen worth up to $2 billion. He is also the president of Real Madrid.

In the last three years, Mourinho and Perez have had to continually defend their relationship. Reports have always defined their interactions as tense and unnatural. In response, they have repeatedly attempted to reassure the public that their relationship was extremely professional, mutually respectful, and constructive. Only the naïve could believe their empty words.

Perez and Mourinho are two very public men with the egos that come with their fame, fighting for a limited power desperately desired by both men.

Mourinho wants total control of his football team. He wants to decide which players are bought, which players are sold, and who plays.

After internal conflicts about player recruitment, sales, and purchases, this authority was awarded to Mourinho, limiting Perez’s voice and power, however after his disappointing run in Europe and Spain, and the unhappy players causing dissent in the Bernabeu, it seems both Perez and Mourinho are happy to part ways, and end a relationship that was doomed before it even started.

Mourinho’s time at Real did not provide the rewards most anticipated, however it did provide the controversy, sound bites, and provocative news all expected.

His poor form in his latest season, perceived unbefitting behaviour on the side, and unrest with the board, players, and their supporters, has left the Portuguese manager pondering what’s next.

As a man that never disappoints, wherever it is, I look forward to it.