The Special One: The Dark Side of Jose Mourinho

by Torres, Diego

  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.

  Wishful thinking takes root very easily in football. For months there was a feeling around Madrid that the season was going to lead to something big. It suited very few people to believe that anything else should come to pass and the overwhelming majority of supporters had faith in the team’s recovery. But by the end of the second week in September, with eight months remaining before the end of the season, Pérez found himself on the edge of the abyss. He was about to lose the confidence of his principal player. His team were about to slip out of the title race, with his coach already mummified in a sarcophagus of constant and irreparable conflict with the senior players and indeed most of the squad.

  Barça started playing almost as badly in the league as Madrid. They won comfortably against Real Sociedad (5–1), but struggled to beat Osasuna (0–1; Messi did not score until the 76th minute), they struggled to beat Valencia (1–0) and did not kill the game against Getafe until the last quarter of an hour (1–4). They were lucky to reach the fifth weekend of the season with 12 points. Madrid only had four points after a draw against Valencia (1–1), a defeat in Getafe (2–1), the win over Granada (3–0) and a defeat to Sevilla (1–0).

  In some respects everything ended on 15 September just after 10 p.m. local time. Piotr Trochowski converted a Rakitić corner and put Sevilla 1–0 up in the first minute of a game that froze from that moment on. It was the fourth week of the season and Madrid were unable to respond to a set-piece goal, despite having 90 minutes in which to do so. For the players it was proof that their age-old problem of playing against closed-up opposition had not disappeared. But in the press conference after the game Mourinho only focused on what had taken place in the first minute, springing to his own defence and emphasising his professionalism while noting what seemed to be the inexplicable dereliction of duty by his players:

  ‘We cannot train any more or any better on set-pieces. Every player knows his position and his mission. Those who have individual responsibilities know who their opponents are and who’s in their zone, and what zone they have to occupy. We have the graphics in our own dressing room … My problem is that my team at this moment are not there … I’m worried that since the start of the season we competed in the Super Cup but have not done so in anything else.’

  It was not just that he was criticising his players in public. It was that he denounced their lack of professionalism and lack of interest. After his tirade at Getafe the manager had set sail on his own ship. The communication strategies of 2010 that he exhibited to the squad as a sophisticated defence policy had, two years down the line, become a weapon that he would turn on them.

  No one knew better than Mourinho that the only reason for renewing his contract until 2016 was financial. The president might have thought that it would make him more committed but Mourinho never believed he could continue in the role unless he was able to dismiss half the squad. That was impossible. The transfer of Ramos and Casillas, two of the pillars of the World Cup and European Championships team, was not even worth thinking about. Mourinho saw calamity around every corner, with Madrid itself seeming like a monstrous trap. Embarrassed by a sense of impending failure and afraid of destroying his prestige, propaganda was his last recourse: in order to maintain the idea of his own innocence in the public’s eyes, he insistently repeated that his players had given up, something that he had expected to happen when the league began. Now he would use his devious techniques as much as he could over the following nine months.

  Concerned after the defeat to Sevilla, the Madrid senior players asked for a meeting. It was attended by Casillas, Ramos and Higuaín. The most impetuous of the three was Ramos, but all of them confronted Mourinho face-to-face. They berated the coach for trying to discredit his players as part of a method whose ultimate goal was to avoid publicly assuming any sort of responsibility himself – ‘like I said before and like I will say again,’ Casillas added. The players said that they had often swallowed their complaints, reminding him of
the tie with Bayern:

  ‘In Munich we lost the game because – among other things – you played Coentrão, and nobody criticised you for it … And in the second leg, when Bayern were dead, you told the team to sit back … And no player said that we were going to miss out on the final because of you.’

  Mourinho did not respond. He stayed silent and dismissed his players. On 18 September, in that season’s first Champions League game, he gave his reply. Manchester City visited the Bernabéu and in the home team line-up there was no Ramos. Instead, Varane played, an 18-year-old centre-back who had barely seen more than a few minutes’ action over the previous 12 months. Casillas was sure that he played that day because the coach did not trust Adán, the reserve goalkeeper. Despite City’s error-strewn play, Madrid almost lost the game. After 86 minutes Kolarov gave City a 1–2 lead. A minute later Benzema equalised, and Ronaldo scored in the 90th minute to make it 3–2, avoiding what could become a very difficult group stage.

  Madrid’s advance through the Champions League group stages and beyond was rough from start to finish, much like the relationship between Ronaldo and Pérez from the gala in Monte Carlo onwards. The president admitted to his advisors that it had been a mistake not to go to Monaco. He was informed that too many ties were established between Mendes, Rosell, Messi and Ronaldo, and he was even told that Messi and Ronaldo had got along. He did not buy that. What he did admit to was that had he been present he would have cushioned the pernicious effect of all this on his team’s star. Monte Carlo laid the foundation of Ronaldo’s sense of abandonment. It also moved Pérez to worry seriously about making the offer that he had retracted since 2011.

  Between 2011 and the start of the summer of 2012 Madrid had improved the contracts of Di María, Carvalho, Pepe and Mourinho, four of the six men represented by Jorge Mendes at the club, the other two being Coentrão and Ronaldo. If Di María’s took a year and a half to renew, Ronaldo’s deal had not been touched in the three years that he had marked him as the most prolific scorer in the history of the club with his 202 goals in 199 matches. The first person who struggled to believe the indifference with which his extraordinary performances were greeted was Ronaldo himself. Madrid could never get their money back on their investment in Pepe, Di María and Carvalho. As for Mourinho, the renewal of his contract was a financial burden for the club rather than the coach. With Ronaldo it was different. His market value in 2013 was well over the £80 million that Madrid had paid for him in 2009.

  Rumours that Ronaldo and Messi were becoming increasingly friendly made Pérez stay ever more alert. There was one fact that troubled him more than any other. The Barcelona president was invited to give a lecture to the World Soccer Awards, the gala that Mendes co-ordinated. At the closing dinner, Capello, Mourinho and Maradona, among other guests, saw Mendes and Rosell break off from the group to go and chat in private. An acquaintance of Pérez who attended the meeting assured him that they had one topic of mutual interest: Ronaldo.

  At first, Pérez completely ruled out the idea that Messi and Ronaldo could appear in the same team, given the degree of personal rivalry between them. Over time, however, he began to think that maybe it was possible, taking the idea so seriously that he proposed going to the FIFA Ballon d’Or gala to keep a very close eye on his star player. And so it was that the president could be found on 7 January 2013 in a secluded corner of the lobby of the Kongresshaus in Zurich watching Messi give a TV interview. Suddenly, Ronaldo appeared from the other side of the room. Then came what the president had feared. Messi called Ronaldo over and the two of them warmly embraced. Pérez told his friends that he was extremely upset, sensing the approaching danger and imagining exactly what was going to happen. Ronaldo would be free in January 2015 and then any club, including Barcelona, could move to sign him without first negotiating with Madrid. Friends say that the president imagined with horror the attacking line-up, player by player. On the left, where he loved to play, Ronaldo. In the middle, Messi. On the right, Neymar. An unforgettable forward line, a return to the galácticos concept in an alien city. Something to be avoided at all costs.

  Obsessed with eliminating all risks, Pérez even ended up considering selling Ronaldo to another club in the summer. Imagining that Ronaldo might did not want to renew his contract, he set the balls rolling for his officials to scour the market in search of offers for the player. A price of €150 million looked possible – to whoever could afford him. But Barcelona were of course ruled out as a buyer.

  The months from 30 August to the season’s end saw a role-reversal. Ronaldo regained his calm and the club’s directors were now the impatient ones. The club asked him three times to sit down and discuss his contract. Ronaldo ignored all of these invitations, saying publicly that he wanted to see out his current contract – in other words, until the end of the deal in 2015. At Gestifute, the company looking after Ronaldo, they assured him that if he went on a free he would be much richer and urged him not to accept Pérez’s conditions. In the spring he was offered a deal that guaranteed him €60 million. In May that rose to €80 million. But he just had to wait until January 2015, when he would be 29 and had clubs willing to pay that amount as a bonus, in addition to a salary that would be better than what he was on at Madrid.

  From January onwards, and in the absence of any response from their star player, Madrid had made a late bid to sign Neymar. Their courting of the Brazilian ended when his transfer to Barcelona was made public on 26 May, compounding the growing sense of anxiety in Pérez’s presidential office at the construction firm ACS. He apologised to his circle of close advisors for having missed the opportunity of renewing Ronaldo’s contract in 2011, when the player was still interested. Then, they would have been able to raise his basic salary of €9 million to €11 million net, far less than it would eventually cost them in September 2013 when it became a matter of urgency.

  Ronaldo went on holiday at the season’s end without having passed through Pérez’s office. It was Jorge Mendes who received the offer of a renewal of his contract. This consisted of an extension until 2017, with the option of a further year, and a salary of €14 million a year. With the recently introduced tax laws this would see Real Madrid pay Ronaldo an annual total of around €30 million, making him the best-paid player in the western world. But before Ronaldo responded he wanted to enjoy his holidays. Why worry when time is on your side? What did it matter that Pérez wanted to start things moving now when the initiative was with Mendes, his agent, his friend and the real winner in all these games.

  Chapter 11

  Unreal

  ‘All entrepreneurs claim to be realists. But the reality is that there is a strong sense of denial in many companies that prevents them from taking the right decisions. Why don’t people face reality? (…) And if you don’t then you cannot keep your company at the cutting edge.’

  Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

  The warm, humid air of the Calblanque spilled serenely down towards the sea. Lying on a deckchair on the terrace, warming himself in the afternoon sun like a lizard, was Jürgen Klöpp.

  ‘The best thing about working in Spain would be the climate, that’s for sure,’ he said, smiling.

  The Borussia Dortmund coach struggled to find any other advantages. In January 2013 he had taken his team to Murcia for the duration of the Bundesliga mid-winter break, as the air on the coast was balmy and clear. Klöpp said that he was concerned about the impoverishment of La Liga and the huge financial inequality between clubs. He had read that in polls he was the fans’ first choice to be the next Madrid coach; their support pleased him, but he made it clear he was happy in Dortmund for one fundamental reason:

  ‘Dortmund is exactly what a football club should be. We’re delighted that it carries on being a club and not a business where they say, “Today one thing, and tomorrow another.” We want to work as a team over a longer period of time. I’ve been here for four years and my contract runs out in 2016. Th
at excites me because it means I can develop new things. I see players aged 10 or 13 years of age, and I know that in four years’ time I’ll be coaching them.’

  The influence of the wildly successful English Premier League had led to a wave of reforms being made across most clubs on the continent. Players now trained in isolated environments far from the supporters, who were increasingly treated as ‘consumers’. Marketing technocrats, inspired by business models that held the old order in disdain, gained new and wider powers at these clubs. They spoke of professionalism, about ‘the industry’ and of science. The fact that Mourinho behaved more like a chief executive of a multinational than a coach was indicative of the spread of this tendency.

  Dortmund had seen this obsession for the administrative ‘future’ during the previous managerial regime and had suffered when their debt bubble finally burst. Since 2008 they had reverted to being a more straightforward institution, with their legendary Westfalenstadion rising up from the middle of a wood close to the Rheinlanddamm. Less than 100 yards on the other side of the avenue are the club offices. The structure of the club is simple. Ninety per cent of shares in the club belong to its members. There is a council, split into four parts led by four people all with something in common. The president Hans-Joachim Watzke, the sporting director Michael Zorc, the youth academy director Lars Ricken and the coach Jürgen Klopp are all former players. Watzke boasts of having muddied his knees in the fourth division before becoming the man holding the Dortmund purse strings.