Childish rows ruining famed football rivalry

BARCELONA led Real Madrid 3-2 on Wednesday night in the second leg of the Spanish Super Cup final. The teams had drawn 2-2 in the first leg. Both were thrillers.

In the third minute of extra time, Real Madrid’s Marcelo hacked down Cesc Fabregas, who was making his much-heralded debut for Barcelona, on the touchline by the two dugouts. The ref immediately drew a red card. Monkey chants echoed around the Camp Nou.

Spain is 30 years behind the English Premier League, and other European leagues, in tackling racism. The scurrilous behaviour of Barca’s fans has gone unpunished. Instead, another media storm rolled in denouncing the actions of Jose Mourinho.

A melee followed Marcelo’s ugly tackle. Both benches leapt at each other in a bout of handbags. Mourinho drifted into the middle of it and seemed to clutch Tito Vilanova, Barcelona’s assistant manager, by the ear, a kind of Three Stooges manoeuvre. Pictures reveal he gouged his eye.

Vilanova responded by giving Mourinho a shove. Mourinho smirked. When asked about it afterwards, Mourinho said that he didn’t know who “Pito” Vilanova was. Pito in Spanish is slang for penis.

It seems that Mourinho will escape censure. The two-team fracas, in which David Villa and Mesut Ozil, two mild-mannered men, were also shown red cards, was an almost identical replay of a brawl that flared at half-time when the two teams met in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final at the Bernabeu Stadium last April.

Barcelona and Real Madrid are soccer’s two greatest rivals. Their ancient feud has been ratcheted a notch or two since Mourinho was appointed as Real Madrid manager last year.

The two teams chased each other relentlessly last season. The off-pitch goading by Mourinho, as only he knows how, finally got to Pep Guardiola, Barcelona’s manager the day before the fractious Champions League semi-final at the Bernabeu. During a 45-minute tirade on Spanish national TV, Guardiola cursed twice, sarcastically calling Mourinho “el puto amo”, the f***ing man.

Spain was aghast. El Pais, the country’s newspaper of record ran the story on its front page alongside a picture of Guardiola, who is normally priest-like in his calm. Barcelona won the match 2-0, thanks to a brace of goals by Lionel Messi, but the game hinged on a red card that was given to Pepe, Real Madrid’s midfield enforcer when the teams were level at 0-0.

Pepe was sent off for a late tackle, although it’s uncertain if he actually made contact with Barca’s Dani Alves, a famous thespian in the Spanish league, who was stretchered off the field dramatically, only to resume play in rude health two minutes later.

When the final whistle blew, fist fights broke out in the stands. Some irate fans invaded the pitch. Missiles rained down onto it. Police made a shield for the match officials as they fled for sanctuary. Later in the night, Andy Townsend, the ITV commentator who looks unfortunately like Wolfgang Stark, the match referee, was set upon in a restaurant by an angry mob.

In the clubs’ backrooms, both their legal teams scurried around, hatching cases to be presented to UEFA about each other’s deceit.

Mourinho responded after the match with a bizarre rant, full of conspiracy theories about why Barcelona were favoured, which included a roll call of dodgy referees who had aided them over the years and a dig about their charity affiliation with UNICEF. He subsequently incurred a five-match suspension (reduced to three) from UEFA for his misconduct.

In a lofty, post-season proclamation by Sandro Rosell, Barcelona’s president, the club threatened to end “our institutional relations” with Real Madrid if Mourinho’s provocative behaviour, amongst other indiscretions such as the “pathetic accusations” levelled against the club’s players and doctors regarding the use of drugs, wasn’t curtailed.

The enmity is set to come to a head this season, which kicks off tomorrow with the first round of league fixtures. Guardiola is gunning for his fourth consecutive Spanish league title as manager and possibly a third Champions League title. It remains to be seen whether Mourinho, who has never failed as a manager, will wipe his eye.