The specific words weren’t forthcoming, but the intended message was clear. “I know in England I am loved,” said Jose Mourinho in April 2013, just moments after his Real Madrid side had been knocked out of the Champions League by Borussia Dortmund. The suggestion, of course, was that he wasn’t loved here. Not by this club. Not in this country. Not anymore, anyway.
That, however, wasn’t strictly true, and nor is it now.
Though Mourinho is loathed by many in the Spanish capital, his allies remain strong in number too. Just 24 hours after the Portuguese had been sacked by Chelsea in mid-December, readers of Marca and AS had been asked whether they’d be in favour of the former Madrid boss returning to the Bernabeu. The response was telling.
At Marca, 48 percent of almost 50,000 said yes; at AS, 49.5 percent of another 19,000 agreed with them. It was essentially a 50-50 split: Mourinho, divisive as ever.
Yet, with the Portuguese in the managerial marketplace once more, the matter of popularity might not be the biggest question here. Instead, it’s perhaps the matter of possibility: Could Mourinho actually return to the Bernabeu? After all that went down the first time, could a reunion really happen?
The answer is yes, it could. This is Real Madrid, remember.
At most other clubs, revisiting a bitter divorce would be unthinkable, but Madrid have rarely cared for convention and rationality. Now built and run so totally in the image of impulsive president Florentino Perez, this is a club that hurtles from one project to another, haste abundant, a sense of continuity in thinking non-existent. As it is, that opens up possibilities. Throw in a growing sense of desperation, and you have a cocktail for, well, anything.
Indeed, Madrid’s current predicament opens the door to a polarising, but powerful figure such as Mourinho. In 2015, the capital club have endured a wretched time, the year descending from disappointment to farce to comedy. There have been thrashings from Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, botched transfers, the ugly Iker Casillas exit, ill-thought firings and hirings in the dugout, the Copa del Rey mess, court cases and embarrassing press conferences. That’s just the start, too; what could have gone wrong has gone wrong, on the pitch and off it, Barcelona’s supremacy compounding it all.
When Madrid sought out Mourinho the first time, they were desperate. Now they are again.
But would Mourinho go back to them?
With the memories of a vicious final season at the Bernabeu still strong, the Portuguese could easily be turned off by the idea. You can imagine him thinking: “Not that circus again.” And yet at the same time, there’s much about this situation that would appeal to the competitor in Mourinho. That inner thirst he has to prove doubters wrong. To humiliate critics. To make sufferers of rivals. To go and win where they said he ultimately failed. There’s also the Champions League title he never won at Madrid—the title that, given Madrid’s stature, remains perhaps the only hole in his CV.
It could happen, then, and probing that thought is intriguing.
On one hand, despite the possibilities, a Mourinho return to Madrid strikes as potentially diabolical. Gripped with institutional tension, the club could do without the antagonism and controversy Mourinho guarantees, unity standing as the quantity Madrid need most. The trend of the club’s recent managerial history goes against the Portuguese, too.
From Manuel Pellegrini to Mourinho, from Mourinho to Carlo Ancelotti, from Ancelotti to Rafa Benitez, Madrid have gone back and forth from pacifist to authoritarian as each as faltered; each time, the club has sought the antithesis of the man they had before. That wouldn’t be the case here, and that’s only the beginning of the issues.
The nucleus of the squad Mourinho bitterly left behind in 2013 is still in place. Though Casillas is gone, Sergio Ramos is now captain and Cristiano Ronaldo is still there. So too are Karim Benzema, Pepe and Marcelo. Mourinho‘s relationships with all of them are almost non-existent.
In 2012, Ramos was a central figure in the dressing room leak scandal that sparked an internal feud, and the hatchet hasn’t been buried. Just last season, Ramos was asked about some critical remarks from his former manager, to which he responded with: “I have nothing to say to the president of Celta,” pretending not to know who Mourinho was by confusing him with Carlos Mourino, Celta Vigo’s president.
Such public slanging matches have a long history.
After leaving Madrid, Mourinho took a hardly subtle dig at Ronaldo, saying he wasn’t the “real” Ronaldo; according to him, the Brazilian Ronaldo was. Cristiano responded with: “I don’t bite the hand that feeds me.” Before that, Mourinho had famously referred to Benzema as a “cat,” he’d punished Marcelo over weight concerns and he’d publicly derided Pepe: “It is easy to analyse the Pepe thing. His problem has a name, and it is Raphael Varane,” said the Portuguese manager in 2013. “It is not easy for a 30-year-old man with experience to be run over by a kid.”
Naturally, then, the question becomes: How could Madrid go back? Rationally, such discord between players and manager would extinguish any possibility of a reunion, but there are other factors at play here.
After such a disastrous calendar year, a squad shake-up might be looming at the Bernabeu, and Mourinho‘s old adversaries aren’t untouchable in that regard. Ronaldo will be 31 by season’s end, Pepe will be 33 and one or two others might be considered expendable. But perhaps more importantly, if Perez had any care for the wishes of his players, he would have never sacked the much-adored Ancelotti.
Thus, if Perez wants Mourinho and Mourinho is willing, Madrid will get Mourinho. End of story. But, oh, how different the reception would be this time.
When Mourinho first arrived in the Spanish capital in 2010, he did so as a winner. As the orchestrator of a treble. As a conqueror of Barcelona. As an almost cult figure at the height of his reputation. Such a standing gave him the sort of power and authority that managers have typically been denied at Real Madrid, affording him liberties he wouldn’t see now.
Now, Mourinho is a recently sacked boss with a dented aura, having left a club near the relegation zone. As such, there’d be no honeymoon period at the Bernabeu, no initial leeway with the Spanish press—they know his methods and he knows theirs; mistrust is rife—and he wouldn’t be given the reins to shape the club in his image. After reinforcing the perception of his short-termism with his latest stint at Chelsea, few will consider him a pillar to build something lasting around.
Yet, perhaps more than anywhere, Mourinho‘s dented stock would be most problematic in player relations. Throughout his career, his biggest challenge has always centred around his ability to reject the you-didn’t-play-so-you-don’t-know notion. For the most part, unrelenting success has helped, but at Madrid the first time it was an issue, and now it would be more so—now more than ever, commanding the respect and adoration of the game’s most politicised dressing room would be arduously difficult.
These are the issues; they’re abundant. But prohibitive? Maybe not.
Though Mourinho divides those connected to Real Madrid, on one side the support for him remains as strong as ever. To his devotees, the Portuguese’s confrontational method was a necessary evil that returned the club to a big part of its essence: winning at all costs, unrelenting competitiveness, ruthlessness and the rejection of everything Barcelona.
In Mourinho, they saw a man prepared to escalate a fight to a war, forcing Barcelona to sweat and scrap for all that they earned. They admired his commitment to that war. They cherished the way he made it an attritional one; they didn’t want pleasantness.
Of course, to the other side, all that Mourinho brought tarnished Madrid and went against what they perceive as the club’s traditional values. Against madridismo. To them, his supporters weren’t madridistas, but Mourinhoistas, fans who’d lost sight of the bigger picture and forged an alliance with an individual over the club. But even so, there are enough of them to matter. And enough of the neutrals, and even the other side could be swayed by a season that’s currently descending almost daily, including the most important of all: Perez.
Facing intense criticism of his presidency (the criticism is justified, too), Perez will know change is necessary. Right now, the construction magnate needs supporters, but perhaps what he needs most is someone who carries the chutzpah to truly lead this club in the public eye. To be the face of it. To be a statement in himself. And in that regard, Perez is running out of options.
Ancelotti is headed for Bayern Munich, and Pep Guardiola would never come. Among others, Benitez hasn’t been the answer, Jurgen Klopp is tied up and the idea of Arsene Wenger has passed. Of course, the thought of Zinedine Zidane is alluring, but even Zidane himself has conceded he’s not ready.
Thus, for what Perez needs, Mourinho might be his default option, and keeping his former ally away from other heavyweights could serve as added motivation. The thought of him rebuilding the colossus that is Manchester United wouldn’t sit well. Nor the thought of what he might turn Paris Saint-Germain into. Or what might be possible back at Inter Milan. Or—and this is left field, but intriguing—what Mourinho could do closer to home at Valencia.
To Perez, those thoughts could make Mourinho a necessary evil once more. His appointment would present issues on almost every level, but the gamble might be worth taking. At Real Madrid, almost anything is possible. At an increasingly desperate Real Madrid, anything is.
“I have good memories of Mourinho,” said Perez to Cadena SER in December, per AS. Many others do too; just as many don’t.
But don’t rule out those memories, good or bad, being added to.
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