Jose Mourinho had his suspicions but wanted to know: who exactly had leaked the story? A training ground confrontation involving Mourinho and Sergio Ramos was leaked word for word and had appeared in the Sunday papers. Sitting pretty at the top of the table and playing excellent football, it should have been happy days but it wasn’t. Some said Mourinho wanted out and believed it was only a matter of time. That was in January 2012 and it was a tough start to the New Year for the self proclaimed Special One, but it appears that 2013 is going to be a lot worse.
The Portuguese Coach stayed and won the League in fantastic fashion. He then signed a new contract and with Barca’s changing of the guard, it felt like it was Real Madrid’s turn to shine, but the wheels came off. With some poor performances and costly defeats, Los Blancos had to watch as Barca galloped away into the sunset. La Liga isn’t over, but 16 points behind the Catalans, having dropped more points and lost more games before Christmas than they had for the entire 2011-12 season, you can see why some are saying that the title is over. There was only one thing left to play: The Blame Game.
At the start all said that everything was hunky dory but suddenly little cracks started to appear. Mesut Ozil was dropped and received some harsh public criticism from his Coach, which in turn saw Ramos defend his teammate. Then Iker Casillas started to make mistakes, something very out of character, and others failed to live up to the task. Then Marca announced it, despite all the denials to the contrary, Real Madrid and Mourinho wanted a divorce. Suddenly journalists who had been ‘Mou’s’ staunchest ally and had defended or ignored some of his most controversial actions and comments, were abandoning ship like rats. It seemed that things couldn’t get worse, but soon it would appear that this was just the eye of the hurricane.
It is no hidden secret that Mourinho and Iker Casillas are not too fond of each other, but both believed that shouldn’t stand in the way of their work. It seemed to be working but before Christmas, the Coach did the unthinkable, he dropped San Iker. So far this season he has had a war of words with the Real Madrid Castilla Coach, had a pop at the League fixtures and invited fans to come early to a game and boo him. While it made headlines, these actions made few ripples but now he has whipped up a storm by dropping the one person deemed undroppable.
Fans were furious then, they wanted Mourinho out and when he played Antonio Adan again against Real Sociedad they made no attempt to hide their disquiet. Poking someone in the eye, fighting with former players and constantly looking for conspiracy theories had gone ignored but this couldn’t, Mourinho had stepped over a line. Yet, his week was to get worse.
On Monday at the Ballon D’Or there was one major absentee. The former Chelsea Coach said he couldn’t attend because unlike the other two nominees, Vicente Del Bosque and Pep Guardiola, he had to work. This did not go down well. AS followed him and on Tuesday ran with the headline ‘Mourinho Lied!’ with an article saying that the Coach who said he was busy working was in fact watching his son play football. Online they had a video as a father watched his son play football.
They forgot to mention that the journey time to see his son play football was very different to a flight to Zurich and that also to a degree he had a point, he did have to work. A paper that once praised the Coach’s relationship with his son was now criticising him for allowing other influences to take over what they deemed to be more important, being the manager of Real Madrid.
It is never good to speculate and never say never but it seems the writing is on the wall for Real Madrid and Mourinho. Marca called it and it seems that a divorce is on the cards, but don’t expect it to be amicable. The mud slinging from this marriage will go on for years.
