Mourinho up to his old games

SOCCER: Real Madrid v Tottenham HotspurIT HAS been a nine-year wait to discover just how a home defeat in the league affects Jose Mourinho. Judging by yesterday's remarks, the loss to Sporting Gijon makes the manager slightly sentimental. Before the first leg of Real Madrid's Champions League quarter-final with Tottenham Hotspur he was in the mood for a little homily that verged on the maudlin when asked about his opposite number, Harry Redknapp.

“He is my friend,” said Mourinho. “Friends are always nice to be with. He says nice things about me and I say nice things about him. That’s normal. But, really, with the work he is doing, he doesn’t need me to be nice. When I was in England he was not managing teams with the possibility to have these kind of ambitions and, finally, after the good work he was doing, he had the chance to go to Tottenham. He had the resource to do it, he has players, he has the team and I am very, very happy.

“I hope, and I say from my heart, if I don’t reach the final, I hope he does.”

The Portuguese was ready, as well, to endorse Redknapp for every post, including that of England manager: “Give him a team, give him a national team and he is ready for everything.”

It is wise to assume that the Real manager is not preparing for a future career in which he concentrates on writing references for his mates. Tottenham would be well advised to ignore this manifestation of Mourinho. He may not be like this normally, but, then again, it takes a good memory or thorough research to establish how he coped with a home loss at Porto in 2002. His present situation is difficult. Utterly unscientific polling, in a conversation with a couple of Real fans, pointed to Mourinho being ditched in the summer.

In theory it should not take so very much to please the club. Since 2003, they have won La Liga twice. That record would gladden many clubs, but Tottenham’s opponents have limitless expectations, particularly, until the weekend, with Mourinho on the payroll. That way of thinking about their prospects is the unending consequence of the allure they brought to the European Cup from its earliest days.

It is feasible that even Mourinho may have taken on a job that is too much for him or, indeed, for anyone set on lasting for a couple of years. Real’s craving for vast renown can never fade and that frame of mind leads to constant casualties. The year of 2003 looms over everything. That summer Real sacked Vicente del Bosque. He had just won La Liga for the second time in three seasons. There had been space in the schedule, as well, to seize the Champions League in 2000 and 2002.

His unassuming way, noteworthy in a man who had been a highly successful midfielder with Real, was the perfect counterweight to players who had come to like the term “galactico”. In the final of 2002, efficiency and artistry merged in a wonderful winning goal from one of those stars. The ball fell steeply out of a rainy Glasgow night and seemed almost to be dropping on top of Zinedine Zidane. To volley the ball at all seemed unlikely, but the Frenchman contorted his body and executed the most beautiful shot for the winner in the 2-1 victory over Bayer Leverkusen.

It was yet another goal for them at Hampden, where Real had lifted the same prize with the landmark 7-3 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960. These are the ineradicable episodes in the tale of football’s glories. Del Bosque could not ensure scenes of awe as a manager, but it might have been thought that he would be prized since his Real side had first taken the European Cup with a thorough 3-0 beating of Valencia in 2000.

In 2003, the insinuation was that he had run out of steam. Given that Spain became world champions last summer under his command, the assessment has not stood up well to prolonged examination. Real were rightly deemed to have come up with the best manager last summer when Mourinho was appointed. The Portuguese needed no one to explain the scale of the mission.

Factors of that sort had their impact when he left Chelsea, yet he was in error if he thought that the past two years with Internazionale proved he could saunter through the most shadowy labyrinth. He did bring them joy, with a first European Cup since 1965, before leaving of his own free will.

Mourinho, of course, fully appreciates the perils of Real. Indeed the hazard is part of the allure for someone of this manager’s boldness. Tottenham are foolish if they assume that the opposition and their manager will be anything other than formidable.

GuardianService