Mourinho’s special antics ensure more madness in Madrid
Whatever else Jose Mourinho chooses to do with his life, somehow you sense that selling insurance will not be part of it. Especially after the extraordinary dramatics of Sunday’s match against Real Sociedad, when what should have been a routine win turned into a 4-3 cliffhanger.
Real Madrid this season have first stumbled then lurched from one crisis to another, mostly self-inflicted.
Just four points from their first four games, defeated at Sevilla and Getafe, they seemed to recover after earning a draw in Barcelona. But those are the only points Barcelona have dropped in 18 matches, and the ominous rumbles of discontent at the Bernabeu have grown louder and louder.
However, nothing could have prepared the fans — or the players — for the decision to leave Iker Casillas out of the starting line-up against Malaga just before Christmas.
Long-term Mourinho-watchers may recall the way he dropped Porto keeper Victor Baia shortly after taking charge at the club in 2002. Others may remember the public shaming of Ricardo Carvalho, who was told he needed psychiatric help after expressing dissent about not being a regular starter.
Mourinho has never been one to respect status.
Yet this is different. Casillas is not just club captain and a Real Madrid icon. He’s captain of Spain and a national hero. He is also the man who reined in Mourinho’s excesses last season when his feud with Barcelona threatened to divide the national team into warring factions.
After losing to Barcelona at home, for the first time in his career, Mourinho agreed to button his lip and avoid polemics.
His players responded with a magnificent run of focused performances, finishing the season on 100 points after a final burst of seven consecutive wins including a decisive victory in Camp Nou.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Casillas has now been made the scapegoat for the team’s problems, at least in part, because of his discreet but firm challenge to the manager 12 months ago.
Madrid went into the Malaga game after a disappointing 2-2 draw at home with Espanyol and a narrow squeak against Valladolid, when they also conceded twice. Their defence has looked wobbly, especially at set pieces. No doubt the keeper shares the blame, however Mourinho has been tinkering with his defensive shape and line-up all season.
Against Malaga, reserve keeper Antonio Adan took Casillas’s place. The experiment was not a success. The defence that had conceded twice in the two previous games went one worse.
“It was a purely technical decision, nothing more,” declared Mourinho afterwards. No one believed him. Club loyalists such as Sergio Ramos were openly dismayed.
On Sunday, they were at home to a side who last defeated them in an end-of-season match eight years ago when the title race was already won and lost (Madrid finished fourth).
Undaunted, Mourinho left Casillas on the bench again, to a chorus of disapproval from the fans, some of them brandishing homemade placards with uncomplimentary messages.
It could not have gone better — for the first five minutes. Madrid were already 1-0 up through Karim Benzema and apparently preparing to repeat last season’s rout of their opponents when the unfortunate Adan had a rush of blood, cleared the ball straight to an opponent and then brought down the onrushing Carlos Vela and was dispatched to the dressing room.
On came Casillas to massive applause but even he was unable to save the penalty and the 10 men embarked on a desperate battle to save the game, and their manager’s face.
It says something for Mourinho as well as his players that they emerged victorious, largely thanks to a virtuoso second-half display from Cristiano Ronaldo, who scored twice. But even this brave win leaves them trailing in third place, five points behind Atletico and 16 behind Barcelona, who incredibly are now champions-elect with less than half the season gone.
