José Mourinho reboots Real Madrid
The one who thinks himself special at the club that really is unique
It’s different this time. He’s changed.
In that he’s stopped pretending he’s changed.
“If I have to choose a nickname for this time”, he said upon returning to Chelsea in 2013, “it is the Happy One. When I was managing for the first time in 2000 I thought I knew everything. After 13 years you realise you know nothing, and have to learn every day. My adventures around Europe was fantastic for me. Different players, clubs, leagues, tactics, media. I think at this moment, at 50, I am still very young as a manager and it is the beginning of a new period. Will I have a different personality? No, for sure no. Will I have a different approach, a different way of looking at things? I think so. Same person, different perspective.”
And let’s not forget the key element here.
"I had one meeting – not five, 10, 20 – with Mr Abramovich and we were convinced this was the way we want to do it. I don't want to defend as a low block, central defenders playing in midfield or long balls to a lonely striker. We want to be proactive.
“If you sit there deep in a low block, with no spaces, you can do that for three hours. No problem. I’ve played like that many times at certain clubs and it’s not a criticism. It’s an option. I went with Inter to Barcelona and, for 60 minutes, we played with 10 men. If we’d had to play for another 60 minutes, we could have. But I don’t want my team to play like that.”
Seven months later, he’d take his team to Anfield and play the most famous “park the bus” game in the history of English football, as his side frustrated Liverpool and won via an infamous slip.
Fast forward to his first season at Manchester United and it’s the same story.
"I only care about the way we play ... keep the faith in the way we are playing and try to have better results, and let's see where that ends”, he said. “I am here to build the future, and build the future with a certain DNA, with a certain style […] We play now in between the opponents' lines. We look forward, our defensive line is very high. Our central defenders don't follow the man, they defend zonal. There are different styles of playing football. We try to follow our style. I have never had a team with so much ball possession. I have never had a team with so much control of a game by having the ball. I have never had a team that creates so many chances.”
Mourinho’s Man Utd were practically Total Football reborn, apparently.
He took a forced break after that job blew up and became very reflective. “I like to read people from different periods”, he claimed, “different generations and recently a friend of mine told me ‘think about Charles Darwin’. He wrote: 'It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change'. […] it's important to understand the change and you adapt to it, so I would say I am really thinking about that”.
When he got the Spurs gig, this theme continued. “These 11 months were months to think, to analyse, to prepare and anticipate things… I realise that during my career I made mistakes.
“You are not going to see Harry Kane playing left-back, that’s for sure”.
I’ll let you be the judge of whether his time at Spurs showed any growth or progression for him as a coach.
Next up, he went to Roma. He was still very revered in Italy, so he didn’t quite have to do such a song and dance. But the hits were still played. “What the ownership want is not success today and then problems tomorrow”, he said in his first press conference. They want to create a sustainable system. They want to leave a legacy for the future. That is why I am here. […] We are talking about a project, about hard work, about time."It is very easy to just promise titles. The trophies will come. The ownership do not want an isolated moment of success. They want to reach that level and stay there. One win is easy, staying up there is less so.”
Mourinho won a trophy in his first season then got sacked in his third as Roma sat in midtable.
The tone starts to shift a little after that. He went into Fenerbahçe with a sense of “it’s me, I’m José”, trying not to admit he’s slumming it in Türkiye. And Benfica could represent a sort of return for Portugal’s most successful manager in the 21st century. But that’s not going to cut it now. No one thinks he’s slumming it at Real Madrid. He’s done well to get the job. He once again has to convince everyone he deserves to be there.
But the job? The job might require different challenges this time.