The Special One: The Dark Side of Jose Mourinho (27 page)

On the morning of 15 December, Pérez declared his total support for his coach at an event to celebrate the awarding of badges of honour to the club’s oldest members.

‘We have built a dream team,’ he said. ‘A spectacular side that’s home to some of the best players in the world, and full of the effort and talent that will help us meet all challenges. We have the best coach in the world, one with an incredible record and who always demands the best. He has had to endure some of the most disproportionate and unjust attacks on himself and his dignity as a person. From here, José Mourinho, my recognition, my faith in your work and my affection.’

Far from pacifying him, Pérez’s support seemed to further embolden him. On the afternoon of 15 December the manager and Silvino Louro tried to intimidate a journalist from Radio Marca before confessing that the dressing room at Madrid had been corrupted by the presence of three
ovejas negras
(black sheep). Three conspirators who needed to be purged. The following day
Marca
published something that Mourinho has never denied: that the manager had claimed that there were three ‘black sheep’ working against him. The players read the story in the hotel before the game against Espanyol, coming to an immediate conclusion: the boss had leaked an accusation that he would never have dared to make in public, that he had been betrayed by his players. It was a familiar refrain; all that was new was the method of dissemination.

Those who collaborated with Pérez in the administration of the club let the president know that they were now certain that the majority of the players were prepared not to win matches in order to destroy Mourinho. These same sources claim that to avoid disaster, the president made a pact with Mourinho on a communications policy that would distract the players. Both saw it as beneficial to let slip the idea that they had agreed that at the end of the season there would be an amicable parting of the ways. The news was released via newspapers and TV channels with long-established traditions of independence and objectivity. Pérez and Mourinho believed that this way the players would believe that the manager was not staying and the rebels would get back to concentrating on the business of winning with all their energy. During these months several club employees were told that Mourinho would be leaving in June in the hope that the news would reach the dressing room. Pérez met with Ramos and Casillas in January, asking them to ignore the manager’s outbursts and attempt to ‘manage themselves’ in a bid to win both the cup and the Champions League. He repeated that the supporters were watching and that they should do it for them. He also offered them more money. If they won the Champions League he said he would raise their bonuses by 50 per cent to close to €700,000 each. They coldly replied that they would do everything possible but that there were certain footballing questions that only a coach could resolve, and that Mourinho seemed to be more concerned with himself than with the team.

On 19 December Barcelona announced that at the age of 43 Tito Vilanova had suffered a relapse of cancer of the parotid gland and would require months of treatment in the United States that would keep him away from the squad. The Catalan club did not look for a substitute for their manager. Control of the dressing room was left in the hands of the players. The power vacuum was filled by Xavi, Puyol, Piqué, Fàbregas and Messi. The nature of the crisis lacked a precedent in modern football; it was unique and Barça suffered a depression in a number of respects, a gradual sinking that Madrid could exploit. But not only did Madrid fail to take advantage of the new situation; the internal conflict at the club became even greater.

On 22 December, days after leaking to the press that he was fighting against the ‘black sheep’ of the dressing room, Mourinho left Casillas on the bench. Madrid played against Málaga at La Rosaleda and the goalkeeper was Adán. None of the players believed the technical reasons for the decision. For several of his team-mates, Antonio Adán, the 26-year-old second-team goalkeeper who had never played regularly in the first division, was not good enough to be put between the posts at a big club. Mourinho told Adán that he was taking Casillas’s place three days before the game, asking him to keep it secret. Casillas suspected something but, until he sat in the dugout, he was not sure what. His withdrawal from the team was a devastating message for the rest of the squad.

Every nation has its sacred footballing pyramid, the very pinnacle usually being reserved for those heroes who have lifted the World Cup. Generally these players were great leaders, flawless sporting figures who are protected because they form the emotional heritage of the followers of the national game. England elevates Bobby Moore; Brazil, Pelé; Argentina, Maradona; Uruguay, Obdulio Varela; Italy, Dino Zoff; France, Deschamps; and Germany, Franz Beckenbauer. In Spain the idol placed at the national summit is called Iker Casillas. The destruction of this hero, with all his symbolic weight, represented a supreme temptation for a man like Mourinho, obsessed by propagating the notion that he was the supreme legislator. The true champion. The only one who knew the way. The unquestioned leader.

That the move was made days after a complaint about the presence of ‘black sheep’ cast the dark shadow of propaganda over the club once more. Casillas did not complain publicly because he believed that if he did so he would have to contradict the coach, putting himself in the role of mutineer. He thought that was exactly what Mourinho expected him to do, and in a previous meeting with the other players he had warned them not to respond publicly to the Mourinho’s provocations. Quite the opposite, in fact; the dressing room had already established that the best they could do was to project the idea of harmony and loyalty.

Pérez did not come to Casillas’s defence. It was not the president’s custom to support his senior players when they ran up against his project. Pérez would certainly defend dressing-room leaders when they were defending his strategy against the group, but his symbol was now Mourinho. Players who put the interests of the squad first were usually removed in the long term. Men of character – Redondo, Hierro, Raúl, Figo and finally Casillas, Ramos and Ronaldo – never had an easy life with Pérez. The squad was gradually running out of such defiant leaders.

Madrid lost 3–2 in Málaga. In the next game of the season, against Real Sociedad on 6 January, Casillas was again left on the bench. But Adán was sent off in the eighth minute for fouling Xabi Prieto in the area, conceding a penalty. The captain regained his position. Madrid won 4–3, having been made to fight to the last in a difficult match played in hostile conditions. The Bernabéu loudly jeered Mourinho. Never before in his career had the coach been the object of such derision and, troubled by it, he sought the help of Rui Faria. The fitness trainer was the perfect intermediary between the coach and Ronaldo, the player considering him a trusted friend and counsellor. Mourinho encouraged this relationship because it saved him having to deal directly with a player whose character he found somewhat difficult to deal with; moreover, he felt that having to personally approach such a popular and independent player diminished his authority. That night at half-time, Faria asked Ronaldo to show his boss a gesture of support, as a personal request. When the attacker scored his second he went to the bench and, by way of dedicating his goal to Mourniho, hugged the coach. Mourinho looked straight ahead, unconcerned.

Madrid hosted Celta Vigo in the cup on 9 January. Once again Mourinho received whistles from the crowd, and once again he mobilised Faria – together with Mendes – to encourage Ronaldo to offer a show of support. Casillas made a stunning save from a ferocious shot from Augustus, but the manager looked distressed and pale. Ronaldo buried Celta with three goals that helped settle the match 4–0. Before the end of the game Mendes sent messages to all those he represented to encourage them to give statements to the press in defence of the coach. In the dressing room the players saw Mourinho urging Faria to tell Ronaldo to ask the crowd not to whistle him. Mourinho also spoke to Mendes by phone from the dressing room. One player said that Mendes also spoke to Ronaldo, asking him to make an appeal to the fans. When he went in front of the cameras the question about the whistling was inevitable.

‘Enough!’ said Ronaldo. ‘The coach is doing his best. I’ve asked the fans to show their support because we have to win something together. They’ve already shown what they think. The players on the pitch can sense it when the supporters complain about the coach and we’ve got to be together.’

Ronaldo did not take part in this campaign out of respect for Mourinho, but for Mendes. He did so reluctantly as he knew that he could hurt Casillas’s feelings; what he said confirmed the conspiracy theory and restored Mourinho’s standing.

Ronaldo was not prepared for the way Mourinho criticised him from the touchline during the first leg of the quarter-finals of the cup against Valencia on 15 January. Mourinho spent the game yelling at him, as if that night he was not doing anything right. The whole team saw Mourinho’s annoyance, his gestures being unusually emphatic and aggressive. After the match, which ended with a 2–0 win, there seemed to be no reason to reprimand anybody. But the manager had already prepared what he was going to say to Ronaldo, whom he accused of ignoring his defensive duties. Ronaldo was not going to tolerate this. His team-mates saw his wounded pride and his reaction was savage. It was not easy to stop him when he launched himself against Mourinho, muscles tense, flushed with anger, drowning him with insults. In the end, Arbeloa and Khedira were able to protect Mourinho from being attacked by physically restraining Ronaldo as he tried to make his way through the crowd of bodies.

In the dressing room they called them ‘
montajes
’, small pieces of carefully choreographed theatre. The players said that such scenes were contrived so that they could be leaked to the press by Mourinho to prove he was a fair coach who did not show favouritism by distinguishing between those represented by Mendes and the rest. The list of those targeted was long, including Coentrão, penalised for violating disciplinary rules, and Di María for being greedy and selfish. Pepe and Coentrão were also left standing for turning up late for the bus at one team meeting. Nobody in the dressing room was convinced by any of these incidents. Di María even confessed, bitterly, that Mourinho had warned him in advance that he would be criticised in public just to set an example. Mourinho asked for his complicity as a favour owed. As a Mendes man, Ronaldo also had to be involved. But Mourinho never forewarned him, as he knew he would not play along with the game. This explains Ronaldo’s reaction to his rollicking in the quarter-finals of the cup, and why things ended badly.

Gestifute employees knew the strategy. They said that during their autumn tour, when looking for deals for Mourinho with Premier League clubs, Mendes’s business partners warned him that he should temper the divisive image that Mourinho projected in Madrid. English clubs were cautious, having heard rumours of Mourinho’s influence, the way he introduced players from his own agent’s portfolio or those shared with other agents, and then managing the squad in such a way as to create divisions within the club. The suspicion that he practised this sort of opportunist behaviour was widespread at City, United and Chelsea, making it difficult to strike deals. One of Mendes’s trusted aides in Portugal told him that what most caught their attention was Mourinho’s decision to give Pedro Mendes, the inexperienced, mediocre young defender, his début in the Champions League against Ajax. Alerted to the warnings, Mendes invited his friend to come up with a plan to show that the suspicions had no foundation. The
montajes
were the result.

In late January 2013 the breakdown in the Madrid dressing room was rivalled only by the deterioration of the mood in Barcelona’s. Guardiola and Vilanova had always said that Mourinho would do their motivational work for them very effectively. The fact that Guardiola would be toasted with Cava after winning the Champions League in 2011 says much for the impetus which Mourinho had given players such as Messi, Xavi, Busquets and Alves.

Casillas’s team-mates in the Spanish national squad told him that by 2010 complacency had begun to spread through Barcelona. Mourinho’s strategies of agitation, far from accelerating this, actually delayed it. In 2012 several players tried to make him see this but Mourinho replied wryly: ‘Very good! You’re all so smart.’

Casillas, Ramos, Higuaín, Marcelo, Khedira, Arbeloa, Carvalho, Kaká, Özil and Benzema were sure of this in 2013. ‘If we’d spared them the psychological warfare Barça would have disintegrated by themselves,’ said one Spanish international. When they had to face Barça in the cup and the league between 30 January and 2 March, most of the squad had decided to manage themselves. They proposed not to criticise referees, match schedules or the opposition. There was to be no more systematic violence or protests on the pitch towards the referee. They had to put an end to the unsportsmanlike gestures and the stupidity of not greeting a team-mate in the Spanish national squad because of what the boss said. Everyone in the group agreed apart from Arbeloa, who understood what his colleagues were about but who wanted to take care of his relationship with the powers that be to save his contract with the club.

Alonso also did things his own way, as mysterious as usual. Signed by Valdano, the Basque midfielder was not the sort of player that Mourinho usually went for, what with Alonso’s history, affiliations and physical conditioning. Mourinho considered him too slow for the job. In the players’ meeting in Santander in 2011, Alonso was one of the most fervent critics of Mourinho’s tactical approach. Over time, however, he stopped going to meals with his Spanish team-mates and would approach Mourinho to chat with him and to agree with him, although it had nothing to do with what he had said elsewhere. When Mourinho proposed targeting Casillas he enjoyed Alonso’s silent understanding. When the players were told to touch Messi’s face because, it was said, the Argentinian was infuriated by it, Alonso was right behind Arbeloa in the queue to offer to do so. ‘But what are you doing?’ Piqué asked him. If his vision, his tactical intelligence and his ability to organise the team with this passing were not entirely convincing, his demonstration of extreme loyalty convinced Mourinho that Alonso was an ally in his crusade.