The Special One: The Dark Side of Jose Mourinho (24 page)

‘These supporters are an embarrassment.’

Madrid bled until the end, when penalties sealed their fate. Casillas saved from Alaba and Mario Gómez, but Ronaldo, Kaká and Ramos missed their spot-kicks. Madrid’s elimination, as far as the players were concerned, was in large part the fault of Mourinho, who had made more bad decisions than good. The players worked out how many times their manager had complicated matches for them since 2011, coming up with the four most significant examples: the Super Cup, the semi-final of the Copa del Rey against Barça and then these two games against Bayern.

The displeasure was both profound and universal. Mourinho did not want to stay at Madrid. In March he began conversations with Manchester City through his agent Jorge Mendes but the City option evaporated when they were proclaimed Premier League champions. As far as Chelsea were concerned, he reached an agreement with Roman Abramovich. But there was an unexpected twist. The London club, under the stewardship of Roberto Di Matteo, lifted the Champions League trophy in Munich on 19 May. The triumph persuaded both Mourinho and Abramovich that it would be best to undo the agreement. It seemed politically costly to the Russian to sack the man who had just won the most important trophy in the club’s history. For Mourinho, taking over a club in transition from one generation of players to another did not appeal, especially with little to gain and with expectations higher than ever. Such a commitment went completely against the challenges he usually took on.

It seemed as if Pérez and Mourinho had enjoyed a magical communion in the spring of 2010. But two years later this magic was gone. Not even the party to celebrate the winning of the league provoked anything more than cold pragmatism between the two men. Publicly, they preached indissoluble unity but when on their own and in private, surrounded by their respective entourages, they contemplated futures in which neither man needed the other. They both understood very well that the exorbitant amounts of money paid out had not been satisfactorily repaid with sporting success.

In spite of the fantasy that surrounded Madrid, mixed up with the fanaticism, Mourinho’s communications strategies, and the constant generation of excitement and anticipation, the two principal actors appreciated that this was not a movie being played out on the big screen; this was harsh football reality. The destruction of Barça’s exemplary image in the media and on the pitch was as much an unfulfilled target as winning the Champions League. As the summer of 2012 advanced, Pérez and Mourinho showed signs of caution, even of complete resignation.

On 22 May 2012, after exhausting his search for a route back to England, Mourinho renewed his Madrid contract, prolonging his link to the club until 2016. The news surprised the majority of his players as they prepared for the European Championships in Poland and Ukraine. The trophy remained in Spanish hands, with Casillas, Alonso and Ramos being three of the team’s most important players. The internationals rejoined the squad in Madrid on 28 July, then flew out for the pre-season in Los Angeles. There they found a mysteriously transformed Mourinho.

The coach seemed to have subtly distanced himself from his Portuguese players. Coentrão, Pepe and Ronaldo – the players with whom he talked most during the team meet-ups before matches – did not now attract him as much as the recently crowned European champions. The retention of the title had lent an aura of success – and personal appeal – to Casillas, Ramos, Alonso and their peers that Spanish players had never previously enjoyed. Mourinho shared a joke or exchanged opinions with them at every opportunity. He wanted to be on the right side of Ramos:

‘Sergio! Where did you go on holiday? You look very tanned …’

Footballers tend to be jealous. Pepe, Coentrão and Ronaldo were indignant – and incredulous – at hearing such pleasantries; these players, beaten by Spain in the semi-finals, now felt displaced. The Spanish, whose mistrust of Mourinho if anything increased amid the new niceties, were convinced that if they had lost to Portugal in Donetsk their situation would have remained suffocating. Even Arbeloa, who in public appeared to be a
Mourinhista
, compared Mourinho’s intentions during the tournament to the planning of a military coup. Everyone knew that the sporting prestige of the winner would translate into power and that Mourinho had crossed his fingers for a Portuguese victory. Had they won, Gestifute, the company that co-ordinated his representation, took it as a given that the manager would have wanted to sign Meireles and Bosingwa that same summer, both players being represented by Mendes. The plan was to augment the Portuguese colony, the club within a club. But, after the Euros, conditions were no longer favourable. It was against this backdrop that when Mourinho saw Ramos he winked:

‘I like your haircut. Is there a stylist in the family?’

Casillas tried to avoid the boss. Every time he was interviewed he tried to make it clear that he belonged to a quite different school. He repeated this as if it were a formula, even though what he was being asked had nothing to do with such an answer. He would then be riled to see that some publications, when they edited his answers, cut out that particular part.

‘I possess the values taught to me by Hierro, Raúl, Redondo, Roberto Carlos, Guardiola, Abelardo or Luís Enrique,’ he’d say. The inclusion of Guardiola was no coincidence, and Mourinho was furious when he heard it.

The summer passed peacefully in between all the frivolities, the political conjecture and subliminal messages, but when it seemed that behind one triviality there was nothing more than another triviality, a fire storm started, one that was to grow to an enormous size and create all sorts of unwanted repercussions.

Ronaldo was reserved from the first day back at work. He avoided everyone, not just the Spanish. He even distanced himself from Pepe, who had previously been his shield, and passed the hours in the company of Coentrão. The kid was irritated. One day in the United States a fan threw a ball at him for him to sign; he refused to do so because it hit him or because he had got out of bed the wrong side, and sent it back by blasting it into the crowd. The rest of the squad thought his irritation was a result of his failure to win the Ballon d’Or. A Spanish team-mate believed that his desire for the trophy was more than an obsession; it was like ‘a sickness’. But no one knew for certain because he had been silent for almost a month, scarcely holding a conversation with anyone.

In the last week of August 2012 Madrid beat Barcelona in the Super Cup on away goals. The first leg ended 3–2, and it was 2–1 in the return fixture. This was Barça’s first tournament with Tito Vilanova in charge, the man whom Mourinho had assaulted the previous year having become Guardiola’s successor in the dugout. The effect of the change seemed to be immediately obvious with Barça’s tactical misjudgements during the Super Cup. They displayed a surprising mix of indolence and dislocation in defence, and had not seemed so vulnerable since 2008.

The league kicked off at the Bernabéu on 19 September with a 1–1 draw against a Valencia side of no great substance. It was a poor game. At the end, Mourinho stormed into the dressing room and launched into his first tirade of the season. Even though he had developed a childish devotion to his Spanish players over the summer, old habits were hard to kick. He said that some players had still not come back from their holidays and that he had observed a lack of hunger on the pitch. His aggressive manner was nothing special; what was new was the disinterest with which most of the players listened to his diatribe. For most of them it was as if he did not exist. They showered, changed and went home.

The only player who seemed to be affected, and not by the words of the coach, was Ronaldo. He had not overcome his melancholy. Jorge Mendes never stopped talking about the Ballon d’Or every time they spoke together. Ronaldo, who found in the protective influence of his agent a substitute for the father he had lost as a boy, had suggested that he would only have a chance of shifting Messi from the throne he had occupied since 2009 by winning the Euros. With the tournament lost and gone, so were all of his chances of winning the individual award. He felt frustrated, something he needed to get over, but the ruling member of his entourage did nothing to help him. Mendes dedicated a large part of his energy to designing new grand projects that centred on distinctive publicity campaigns for his top player. He wanted to be considered as the number one agent because he represented the world’s number ones.

With the aim of making these projects a reality, Mendes became Diego Maradona’s agent, and in 2010 he was the force behind the creation of a parallel world football gala called the Globe Soccer Awards, to be celebrated in Dubai. He would attend this celebration as master of ceremonies with his team, introducing various awards tailor-made for himself and his players. Mendes is the only person who has won the award for ‘best agent’ – the first of its kind – coming top in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

If the existence of Messi frustrated Ronaldo’s dream, the strength of the Spanish national team took Ronaldo even further away from the Ballon d’Or prize he sought. The evening held in Dubai has the lavish setting of the Persian Gulf in its favour, but it is FIFA who are associated with the prestige of the golden ball. For many years Mourinho and his agent had repeated to Ronaldo that the Argentinian footballer was the one he had to beat. They called him ‘
El Enano
’ (‘The Dwarf’) and entertained themselves discussing his shortcomings. The coach assured Ronaldo that it was the political power of Barcelona that kept Messi on the throne, and that it could not last for ever. At some stage in the summer of 2012 Ronaldo realised that fantasy and reality do not always coincide, and that what the people who had always believed in him had told him might not be the truth.

Ronaldo’s troubles explained his dark mood in training. Missing the frenetic spark of his best days, he had not scored in the first two weeks of the season, which marked a major dip for him. In the second match, Madrid lost in Getafe and were already five points behind Barcelona. The dressing room was like a blast furnace. The group of players headed by Madrid’s senior players turned their back on Mourinho again. They held that the team would never make up the gap in the table, although they insisted that this was not down to any lack of competitiveness. Winning the title – such a necessity last season – had not taken away their edge. One league title was certainly not enough, hardly satisfying their thirst for glory. Teams don’t exhaust themselves because of the trophies they have won but because of a breakdown in unity and togetherness. The majority of the players, for one reason or another, confessed to being unable to respond to a coach in whom they had lost belief.

Ronaldo put his best marine blue suit and navy and charcoal tie on to go to the UEFA gala in Monte Carlo on 30 August. He was nominated alongside Messi and Iniesta for the European Footballer of the Year Award 2011–12. The cameras recorded his disappointment when Michel Platini, president of UEFA, announced that Iniesta was the winner. But what really upset him was seeing the other two nominees accompanied by the Barcelona president Sandro Rosell, while he was accompanied only by Emilio Butragueño. It was not a question of the individuals concerned, but of etiquette and protocol. The player thought he deserved better. He was going through a difficult time and he found himself somewhat abandoned.

The Monte Carlo gala threw up a first. Never before had Messi and Ronaldo shared second place and, what is more, with the same number of votes. Perhaps they understood that, despite all their differences, they had finally coincided in something. Making the most of the situation, Iniesta, who had an excellent relationship with Ronaldo, moved the player closer to Messi. They spoke. Almost certainly about football and for their shared admiration for the winner. There is a Spanish phrase ‘
el roce hace el cariño
’, meaning that constant friction ends up giving way to affection, and the two enjoyed each other’s company. Jorge Mendes, Ronaldo’s agent, was there to watch over his friend and player, and, as the day went on, he started chatting with Rosell, apparently as if the two were old friends.

Madrid beat Granada 3–0 on 2 September. After scoring two goals, Ronaldo showered, changed and, donning his black baseball cap, appeared before the press in what appeared to be another innocuous media appearance. That was until someone asked him why he had not celebrated his two goals.

‘It could be that I’m a bit sad,’ he replied. ‘It’s the only reason. I don’t celebrate goals when I’m not happy. And it’s not for the UEFA award. That’s the least of my concerns. There are things that are more important than that. It’s something professional. The people in the club know why.’

Casillas and Ramos pushed for a meeting with their team-mates to ask Ronaldo if he had a problem that they could help resolve, and seeing that it was something that had nothing to do with them they offered him their support. Rumours began to circulate in the dressing room about the cause of their top scorer’s woes. The most widely accepted story was that he had sought out Pérez in a meeting and had made it clear to the president that he did not want to stay at Madrid, under the current conditions, without receiving greater backing from the institution, the supporters and his team-mates. In time his fellow players came to realise that Ronaldo held nothing against them and that his relationship with Mourinho was as irrelevant as always. The person who had been upsetting him was the president.

Ronaldo told his friends that on returning from Monte Carlo he had contacted Pérez to tell him of his frustrations for the somewhat offhand treatment he had received at the hands of the club since 2009. It was a brief encounter. Ronaldo suggested that if the club did not want him then they should listen to offers from other teams that did. In response, the president said that he could go, as long as his sale earned the club enough money to pay for Messi’s buy-out clause.

Everything that made Ronaldo stand out as a player he owed to his own self-respect. His tenacity came from his vanity, his ability to overcome obstacles from his ambition, the feverish desire to compete and to work meticulously on his physique, all this acted as a shield to protect him against external challenges. The man had a touch of naivety about him, too, and this was also part of his great strength. He believed in himself to the point of accepting his own legend – and he loved football because it served as a reaffirmation. In the stadium he could repeat to the world: I am Cristiano. Pérez’s words, whatever they were, must have opened up a crack in that shield, confirming to him the truth of all the whispers he had heard about the low esteem in which he was held at the club. For some reason, perhaps because he had been signed by Pérez’s predecessor Ramón Calderón, the president had not been able to hide his lack of tact and affection. Ronaldo would never forget this.