Who was that polite and humble man... Jose Mourinho?
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Jose Mourinho admits he is humbled by magnitude of Real Madrid job
Portuguese signs four-year contract with the nine-times European champions and is given a brief to end Barcelona’s dominance
Who was that polite and humble man, and what has he done with José Mourinho?
Bombast, arrogance, theatricality: the Mourinho hallmarks were absent yesterday when Real Madrid unveiled their new coach. The European champion began life at the Bernabéu by playing down expectations and paying due deference to the club’s size and history, as if awestruck by the magnitude of his new job despite his infinite self-belief and vast success.
Mourinho’s best line was not about himself, but the club. “I believe that not to coach Real leaves a void in a coach’s career,” he said. Not quite on the self-aggrandising scale of “I’m European champion and I think I’m a special one,” the words he famously used to mark his arrival at Chelsea six years ago — fresh, as now, from winning the Champions League.
Ever since, Mourinho has proved a near-paradox: an ego-warrior who produces teams that exemplify the virtues of unselfish unity. “The most important thing is the club, not the players, not the coach. We are little compared with the club,” he said in response to a question about how he would handle another Portuguese without self-esteem issues, Cristiano Ronaldo.
The brief? Beat Barcelona and lift the Champions League. It is as simple and as hard as that. Real were European champions three times between 1998 and 2002 but have not progressed beyond the last 16 since 2004 and have been second-best domestically since winning La Liga in 2008, the year Mourinho took charge at Inter Milan.
He has signed a four-year contract to succeed Manuel Pellegrini and seeing it out would be miraculous at a club who have employed 11 coaches in the past seven years.
“I was born to be a football coach,” he said. “I am José Mourinho and I don’t change. I arrive with all my qualities and my defects. My attraction to Real Madrid is due to its history, its frustrations in recent years and expectations to win. It’s a unique club. The beauty is not so much to train or play at Real, but to win at Real Madrid.”
There was a spiky rebuke for “unintelligent” people who “lie” by claiming that his teams are defensive — the 47-year-old prefers to call his sides “organised”.
In Catalonia, they were not quaking but cackling. Joan Laporta, the outgoing Barcelona president, claimed that the appointment was a sign of Real’s desperation and obsession with their rivals. “They’re in a situation where Barcelona is winning everything, and the fact they’re not winning creates a sense that Barcelona is the reference point,” he said.
The relative lack of triumphalism in Madrid may reflect the sticky nature of Mourinho’s divorce from Inter. It took several days for Massimo Moratti, the Inter president, to reach a compensation agreement with Florentino Pérez, his Real counterpart.
As soon as Inter had beaten Bayern Munich in the Champions League final in Madrid on May 22, machinations to secure Mourinho a permanent seat in the Bernabéu dugout were under way in earnest. His decision to jettison Inter for Real was cold-eyed and pragmatic, yet has taken a sentimental toll.
He was filmed sobbing as he cuddled Marco Materazzi, the Inter defender. Hard to imagine Sir Alex Ferguson ever doing that with Gary Neville.