In my opinion, there really is not a better manager than Jose Mourinho who could take over the volatile hot-seat at Real Madrid. His self-defined confident arrogance leaves him standing as the perfect man for the job. Over the past few years, Real have seen a host of managers come and go in quick succession. But I feel that Mourinho’s time will bring something new and exciting to one of the most storied soccer clubs in the world. I spotted a great article on the subject over at Guardian, written by Sid Lowe, that is well worth reading:
Free in Marca: your very own poster of José Mourinho. If anyone needed proof that Real Madrid’s coach is unique, here it was. By the end of last season, the country’s best-selling newspaper could hardly bare to look at Manuel Pellegrini, let alone produce a poster of him. Much the same could be said of the men who preceded Pellegrini, from Carlos Queiroz to Mariano García Remón, Vanderlei Luxemburgo to José Antonio Camacho. Coaches, as the former Madrid manager Juande Ramos said this week, “are useful to have around – as someone to burn”.
Mourinho is different; Mourinho is someone to pin on your wall, an idol. And because Mourinho is different, everything about this Real Madrid is different too. For the first time, the superstar is on the bench. Mesut Ozil claims he joined Madrid to work with “the best coach in the world”. No one ever said that about Juan Ramón López Caro. The club’s president, Florentino Pérez, has certainly never said this about any of his coaches before: “This year’s galáctico is Mourinho.”
On the morning Mourinho officially signed, he was taken round the stadium, finishing up before the trophy that obsesses Madrid. “When we got to the last European Cup [which Madrid won in 2002], Pérez said he missed it,” Mourinho revealed. “I said: ‘I only won my last one 10 days ago and I already miss it.’ We both want the same thing. Madrid have an incredible history in the European Cup and an incredible negative history in recent years.”
He could not have summed it up better. In the competition that defines them, they have not won a knockout tie in six attempts. By their own measure, the biggest club of all are not a big club at all. They went three years without a trophy of any kind at the end of Pérez’s last presidential reign and, despite spending €258m (£212m), ended his comeback season empty-handed. Meanwhile, Mourinho achieved with Internazionale what Madrid so desperately want to achieve: he won the European Cup and he defeated Barcelona.
That is why Madrid invested almost €100m (£82m) in paying off Pellegrini and signing Mourinho and his staff. Talk of beautiful football, occasional gripes by the very few dissenters are largely a red herring. Nothing else matters: Madrid must win, they must be a European force. Forget former talk of fantasy, when he announced Mourinho’s arrival Pérez said simply, and quite accurately: “Madrid’s identity is winning.”
Check out the rest of the article over at the Guardian.
