Mourinho's Legacy. Bringing Mourinho To Madrid Was A Mistake From the Very Beginning.

Through out the article i will use a term i coined, "Resultist". Meaning a context where results are almost the only thing to be valued.

In the Summer of 2010, a year after Florentino Perez's return to the Bernabeu as the president of Real Madrid, came the arrival of "The Special One" Jose Mourinho. The Reigning holder of the Champions League, and Winner of a Treble with Inter Milan, Jose Mourinho was coming into Madrid with the best possible resume, the expectations were as high as they could get, and if you lacked an analytical edge to the situation, (the media's and realistically, the majority) view of his arrival could have been seen if anything as the arrival of "the messiah", the ultimate "solution" to Madrid's problems.

The trophies he had won with Porto, Chelsea, and Inter, along with his cult famous personal encounters against FC Barcelona in the distant and (then) recent past, would have you believe that he had finally arrived to the biggest club of them all to win trophies, and to take down the Catalan Army of FC Barcelona.

As i will show in this post though, His arrival was an error and misconception from the very beginning, and a product born from the broken mentality held up high by the Club's most powerful figure.

The Culture of Perez as i like to call it, is a sort of a dark cloud that i imaginarily portray to be raining on top of the Santiago Bernabeu as long as he is president of Real Madrid. The dark cloud is filled with Acidic Rain that falls upon the Bernabeu and it's people, and infiltrates the Stadium and the people not protected with the negative, incorrect, and illogical ideas of Florentino Perez. His return was a mistake, it was the return of gravely equivocated ideologies, and Mourinho was, and still remains to this day quite possibly the second biggest mistake in Perez's second reign as Real Madrid President. His first being, sacking Manuel Pellegrini, who truly embodied what Real Madrid as a club on and off the field deserves. With Mourinho, Perez effectively sold his soul and the Club's soul to the devil. 

Before arriving In Madrid there are two principle CULTURAL reasons as to why the appointment was a very badly chosen one.

1.  In Madrid there has always been a culture/structure where behavior and values are looked at with a microscope in a special way, in Madrid this is called "senorio", where madrid is looked at or was looked at as a "classy" club to put it simply. Similar to how FC Barcelona stands for their own values as they say with "mes que un club". ( This was problem A for Mou before he went to madrid, as he was/is a very arrogant and controversial figure).

2. In Madrid there is a belief that you have to "die" attacking, people dont want to see Madrid defending on their back foot in their own home. There is a certain spanish style in Madrid's history, epitomized recently in the late 80's with "La Quinta Del Buitre" era in Madrid which won the hearts of many with their beautiful football and gracious presentation, along with a plethora of trophies. ( Problem B for Mou before he went to madrid, as he didn't play his teams with a proactive philosophy.)

So these two culturally based problems were going to make it hard for Mourinho and Madrid to flesh together, because as everyone knew, he had an attitude which would clash with "senorio", and he had the problem with the way he'd make the team play, so controversy and  displeasure was practically guaranteed before he arrived.

On top of that, he had also proven in his track history to be a short term coach who would tend to implode everything in on himself and his club in a very short while.

When Madrid acquired him, Manuel Pellegrini ( Classy man with a very Proactive football philosophy) was sacked so he could come. Most people had an idea that bringing Mourinho to the Bernabeu had its drawbacks, as not only the attitude and style was in doubt, but also his ability to build a long term plan. The whole point with his appointment was for THE ENDS TO JUSTIFY THE MEANS, as Madrid had recently been through a title drought and had suffered because of FC Barcelona's dominance ( two things many thought Mourinho could effectively fix almost exclusively).

This Resultist philosophy that Perez has willingly taken throughout the years would bite Madrid back hard yet again.

Now On to planting my idea as to how i will rate his time here...

Mourinho is more RESULTIST than a coach like Pep Guardiola in that a coach like Guardiola or Cryuff hellped build legacies, canteras(Youth Academies), styles of football, and football with substance that could be evolutionized and revolutionized into being something special. Mourinho brings nothing of this into any team he manages, because as his track record shows, his football is not long term in that sense and if anything he has always shown that his Modus Operandi was ANTI long term. So based on this maybe a coach like Guardiola who is classy and has this long term thing to him could be saved from being "hanged" when judged, but when a coach that is so arrogant and controversial and plays such a negative football and is like what oil is to water when compared to what Madrid stands for comes to Madrid and fails to justify the means with his arrival, the only thing i can do as the majority can is deem his time here as a FAILURE. 

Thus Mourinho naturally never leaves much to judge other than his trophies and his journey to getting them...No Youth Setups, or football philosophies, or long term factors.

Now Lets look at how he performed in the two primary competitions that we were set out to win...La Liga and The UEFA Champions League.

HE FAILED TO WIN 5/6 OF THOSE TOURNAMENTS in his 3 year (2010/2011, 2011/2012/, 2012/2013) stay at the club.

Mourinho's poor tactics played a big part in the overall failure as he failed to build a good team with proper modern mechanics.

He got beat by Fc Barcelona twice in the overall battle for the leagues, and the scheme he brought to Madrid was so poor that we got lambasted 3 years in a row by Dortmund, Munich, and Barcelona. Bare in mind that in each and every one of the Champions League campaigns ,the only time we had real formidable foes in our way to the semi finals was in the 12/13 season when we faced Manchester United, and Madrid only earned the edge to top United, principally because the referee made a mistake by giving a red card to Nani and leaving United exposed with 10 men in the second lef quarter final encounter. Mourinho failed in practically every serious outing Madrid encountered in the Champions League. 

To state it in simple terms, Mourinho's football was so horrible that we lost two La Liga titles because teams figured our tactics out too easily. We were either ill prepared tactically, mentally and/or emotionally throughout all the controversy in the past 3 years, and in the end this all resulted in failure as Real Madrid under Mourinho failed to win 5/6 "real" trophies. That's an 83 percent failure Mourinho suffered in Madrid. 

So he left us with a horrible brand of football if it can even be called a brand, and with 1 trophy out of 6.  So in that side of the coin its a total FAILURE from Mourinho.

On THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN. You could say he brought madrid back into relevance into the CL SEMI FINALS, this is probably the only justification his most dire supporters can use, but the reality is that since VICENTE DEL BOSQUE IN 2003 AND NOT EVEN THEN! No one has been given more power or money to spend than Jose Mourinho, in Real Madrid. What did jose do with that power? He made a circus out of Madrid making the club and it's team look like bastards on and off the field on Multiple occasions with guys like Xavi defending the senorio of Real Madrid, (our OWN CLUB RIVAL) by saying that Mourinho was a cancer eating away at everything Madrid stands for. 

Using Real Madrid's return to relevance in the European stage as a justification for Mourinho's presence is like saying,"hey madrid finally gave someone a chance and when they gave the guy a chance you know what he did? he made us look like clowns, made horrible purchases, and failed to win the trophies more than 80 percent of the time!"

Now about his transfers..They were horrible...

He brought Nuri Sahin yet he ostracized him completely despite some good performances, and the need for him to be used considering Xabi Alonso was worn out from playing almsot every match of the season.

Di Maria proved to be a talented player, but with a very low sense of Football IQ, thus his consistently bad performances( this was clear even in his time with Benfica), yet Mourinho preferred to deny the uber talented David Silva from coming in favor of Di Maria.

Coentrao was a 30 million failure, not needed here, Mourinho tried him in midfield and failed, and he failed at displacing marcelo too.

Altintop?......

Modric maybe his biggest failure. So expensive, could have brought someone like Gundogan or given Sahin more of a chance but he spent so much on Modric just to use him as an impact sub and utility player...

Mourinho wasted Millions of Dollars on players that would prove to be badly made purchases, and never once made changes to areas on the team that proved since almost day one, that they needed fixing such as the Midfield Pivot, or the Right Back  position.

 On top of all of this, he also lost the dressing room. 80 percent of the dressing room was against him. Due to multiple confrontations and mind games he had with players like Sergio Ramos and Iker Casillas ( Sub Captain and Captain Respectively), that proved to be his two biggest mistakes in man management while in Madrid.

Mourinho failed.

He failed with the trophies.

He failed with the football.

He failed with the image.

He failed with the money (transfers).

He failed with his players.

Among his only positives, was a sense of being able to bring more credibility in the Dressing Room and Press as a manager who had everything under control, enough to manage such a big club, but in the end, that was a big misconception, and the results showed this. And all the power and trust, given to him, was the type of power and trust, not given to any Madrid manager, EVER!

What he did with all that money, power, and trust, was a disgrace, and he was exposed as a tactically inept coach compared to the current breed of wonder coaches such as Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp, who both massacred Mourinho's Madrid when taking all their confrontations into account. 

Madrid Managed to defeat Dortmund once, the other being two losses and a last minute draw. 

This analysis from Tactics Website Zonal Marking gives a good example of his individual match failure against Dortmund in April of this year .

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2013/04/25/dortmund-4-1-real-madrid-dortmund-enforce-high-tempo-spells-at-the-start-of-both-halves/

An all too occurring event while in Madrid.

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/11/30/barcelona-5-0-real-madrid-tactics/
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/04/28/real-madrid-0-2-barcelona-tactics/
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2012/04/17/bayern-munich-2-1-real-madrid-what-type-of-player-to-use-as-the-number-ten/

And this in many ways only scratches the surface of all the reasons as to why Mourinho was a bad choice to begin with, and why he failed miserably and was exposed in many ways, as a fraud. But i do hope i gave a proper example as to why Mourinho's stay in Madrid should be deemed as a failure.

A faulty philosophy led to the appointment of such a man, and to the sacking of a Man like Manuel Pellegrini (to the left), which in many ways was as much of a sign of misunderstanding and failure to come, as was the sacking of Vicente Del Bosque in 2003, during Florentino Perez's first reign as Real Madrid president. 

He became the most powerful manager in Real Madrid history, and made a mess out of the Club and His team on so many levels, ( not the only time as his times in Chelsea and Inter were identical in their implosion bar the trophies, but that can be another article).

Maybe if he had won the Champions League at least once it would be a nicer image, but not so much for me. It would not erase any of the very REAL mistakes he made in Madrid, and if we didn't win on the pitch to say the least, it was for very damn good reasons. ( He never made us into "the better team on the pitch"). 

( And the future doesn't paint all too well with Carlo Ancelotti as new manager, atleast right now as they play very smilar styles of football, with a big difference being that Carlo is actually a classy man...)

If i were to describe Mourinho with two words they would be...

Atrocious & Fraud.

...But i shall depart for now, with a much more optimistic pair...

Hala Madrid.