Kick off is 24 hours away, and things are getting ugly. Marcotti tweeted this a few moments ago, par exemple:
Wow. AS – actually @AS_Relano – compares Mourinho to Schettino, the captain of the Concordia cruiser who abandoned ship. Gloves off.
— Gabriele Marcotti (@Marcotti) January 24, 2012
And Mourinho seems to be (understandably) sandbagging the press. Sid Lowe:
On Wednesday night Real Madrid face Barcelona in the Copa del Rey quarter-final second leg at Camp Nou trailing 2-1 from the first match and the pressure builds on the Portuguese coach. Asked if he was happy at the Santiago Bernabéu, during his edgy, tense pre-match press conference, Mourinho merely shrugged and muttered: “Uh-huh”.
I don’t mean to be all Andrew Sullivan protecting Obama here, but Mourinho’s Madrid is five points clear of Barcelona in the league. Mourinho sure wouldn’t let the press corps forget that either. In response to what it will take for the Spanish press to warm up to him, he responded “Maybe have a point more advantage over Barcelona?”
Children please: this is the league cup for crying out loud. Did Real collectively forget Mourinho’s two successors were Manuel Pelligrini and Juande Ramos? And fans really think Sergio Ramos and Pepe will somehow magically become better than Pique and Busquets if Jose leaves? Or the players will play a streamlined possession-based football with another manager? Who? Are they really dumb enough to think Pep built Barcelona in a day?
Mourinho should resign. Spain doesn’t deserve him.
Mourinho to MLS!
Hey Richard, I was reading an article on ESPNSoccernet I think and I read somewhere that the winner of the El Clasico tomorrow will go ahead in the overall head-to-head record. Can you verify this?
According to Wikipedia, the all-time record in competitive matches is RM-86 FCB-86 D-45, with Madrid holding an 11+ goal differential.
I believe before last week’s match, Madrid had two wins on Barca, so in that case Barca would tie Madrid with a win tomorrow.
Sweet, thanks guys. And also, I think its’ Barca with the most overall titles (including the most Copa Del Rey titles) but RM with the most CL and league titles.
I understand that Mourinho is a polarizing figure, but his team is winning the league currently. One would think he could get a little more love from the press.
Never. 1) it’s the Spanish media 2) Not when you’re up against the lovechild of the Media that can do no wrong (Barcelona)
It’s a shame people decide to disregard the amazing things RM and Ronaldo have achieved since Jose came, simply because they’re always compared to Barcelona and Messi and what Pep does. Meh.
The Pellegrini who collected 96 points and didn’t get hammered 5-0 by Barca? And yes I know he lost to Alcorcon.
No one expected Pepe to suddenly become better the world’s best defender. In fact they were expecting him to be sold but that was never going to happen since he shares the same agent as Mourinho. They maybe expected that Mourinho wouldn’t fight to get Pepe a new contract and that he wouldn’t be playing in central midfield.
There were plenty of questions (like spending 30m of Coentrao only to mostly play him midfield instead of spending that money on a proper central midfielder) to be asked of Mourinho which never were. The press had given him a free ride till now. Even after poking Villanova in the eye, the press mostly let him be.
The last defeat and crucially the manner of the defeat (RM manged just one shot on target at home!) seems to have been the last straw.
The media in Madrid is bonkers but they’re not entirely without reason here. Undoubtedly the timing of this is terrible. RM could still win the treble(!) but this has been building since the Manita last October.
Didn’t Real lose 6-2 at home that year to Barca? Is there really a difference?
The 2-6 came the year before Pellegrini when Real had turned up for the Clasico with the likes of Diarra, Gago, Metzelder, an aging Cannavaro among others.
Right right, now I remember.
Pellegrini was the guy who got them eliminated from the Champions League by Lyon, right? The same Lyon Madrid knocked out the next year with Mourinho 4-1 agg?
I also believe Mourinho’s Madrid tied Barca in the second league Classico last year.
I’m not trying to argue, i’m just saying if Mourinho can’t get these guys past Barca, who the hell is going to? Wenger?!
“if Mourinho can’t get these guys past Barca, who the hell is going to? Wenger?!”
Exactly.
well, better Wenger than Ferguson.
Last year and the time before that proved that Fergie is clueless as his team when it comes to Barca.
While Arsenal went through a spell where they lost 3 keepers and had to get Lehman back yet still managed to do very nicely against Barca last year.
The 2nd game was marred by that idiotic red card to RVP but even with 10 players, if Bendtner puts that ball in, Barca was out.
So please keep your Wenger vs Barca comments and switch the name to Fergie because United were thorougly embarassed the last two times they met.
The way which Madrid play against Barca
Worse footy press: Italy, Spain, or UK?
the worst?
its like gauging whether you prefer herpes or chlamydia.
the spanish treat everything like the end of the world and are bigger homers while the english has a strong xenophobic tint to the english passive-aggressive. considering their social and culitural isolationism towards the rest of europe, its not surprising.
the italian press feels winded. like seria A. even the latest scandal isnt getting the same traction as it would have a few years ago. Then again, the country is a basket case politically and economically.
I heard that if you say ‘bloody mourinho’ in front of a mirror 3 times, he comes and gouges your eyes out
I’ve heard he leaves you a beautiful bottle of wine after as well.
Hahahaha “We laugh,we spoke, we speak, we drunk…”
Richard, I’d very much like to know what you mean by “Spain doesn’t deserve him”. I presume you would prefer a return of the Special One to England, so as to save the people of Spain the headaches and are not inferring Spaniards are not good enough for him.
Spanish media are too harsh and blatantly annoying, repeatedly going after the same story “yeah but real madrid are not as good as Barca yet. yeah but Ronaldo hasn’t won 3 Ballon d’messis in a row. yeah but you dont play beautiful football like Barca” etc etc.
They need to get off it. I miss the Mourinho we saw in the English press. The “please don’t call me arrogant, but I think I’m a special one”, calling Arsene ‘voyeur’, saying he is feeling more pressure because of the “bird flu in scotland” than he is of football….and I absolutely loathed him at Chelsea, with them winning things but you know. Reading papers was fun. Now it’s the same shit every day from the Spanish Media and it increases tenfold before a clasico.
After last week’s classico, while making his way to the press conference, Mourinho slipped and fell into a taxi and couldn’t get back to stadium…
its all part of his brilliant plan:
lose every game possible against Barca this year and still win La Liga.
its so simple you wonder why no one ever thought about it.