The Barcelona v Real Madrid thread

[Shaggy]

José Mourinho on the warpath as Barcelona close in on title


Sid Lowe at the Bernabéu
The Guardian, Sun 17 Apr 2011 23.52 BST

José Mourinho's premonition came to pass. He said Real Madrid would prepare for el clásico with 10 men because "my teams always get red cards against Barcelona", and so it proved. Raúl Albiol was sent off for hauling down David Villa and Madrid improved after his departure, recovering to clinch a draw which provided them with a boost for Wednesday's Copa del Rey final and the Champions league semi-final, despite effectively making Barcelona the league champions. Now he has made an appeal for the chance to face the Catalans with 11 players – and accused Barcelona of "controlling" football in Europe.

Rarely has a league title been so ignored. This draw left Barcelona eight points clear, with an unassailable advantage in goal difference, with six games remaining. Madrid, who must still travel to Valencia, Villarreal and Sevilla, would have to win every game and hope that Barcelona lose three times.

Mourinho did not mention the title but Alvaro Arbeloa described it as "practically over". And yet there was no depression. Instead this match and the reaction to it appeared to be all about setting the tone for the other two trophies in play.

Madrid's late reaction, fighting back in the final 10 minutes with a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty, left many declaring this a draw that "tasted like a victory". According to Mourinho, they had completed a "mission impossible". Madrid had been down to 10 men, and a goal down through Leo Messi's penalty, since the 51st minute. But despite Barcelona's dominance, they created chances and equalised, the penalty following a debated foul by Dani Alves on Marcelo nine minutes from time. Alves, who had earlier received a yellow card, was not given a second.

For the Portuguese it was a familiar scenario. He has had men sent off against Barcelona while coach at Chelsea, Internazionale and earlier this season for Madrid. And although he did not evaluate the central question of whether those decisions were just, he did speak out in an attempt to apply pressure on the match officials taking charge of the games that may define his first season at Real Madrid. Mourinho, who refused to answer questions from certain journalists after a media protest and walkout the day before, also described the "different treatment" meted out to teams as "absolutely incredible".

"I would like to play one day against Barcelona with 11 men," Mourinho said. "I would really like to but I know that in Spain and in Europe that is mission impossible. They are a team that controls every situation that surrounds the game. When we got off the bench [to protest], we were told to sit back down; when they did it, they could do whatever they like. I would love to have the control of football that they do. I do not understand why they dominate the situation but they do.

"It should be the same for everyone. If it is a foul, it is a foul; if it is a card, it is a card. But there is a difference in criteria that is absolutely incredible. Why does Alves not get the second yellow card? We played well with 10 men because we had prepared for it and we know what we had to do but [with a view on Wednesday] we have played for 47 minutes with 10 men in which they had control and we had to chase. We learnt that 11 against 11 we can compete, but I am tired of giving a team talk, talking, talking, talking, and then having to give another talk dealing with what we will do when we go down to ten men. I would like the chance to play then with eleven."

Asked how he saw the next three games going, Mourinho gave another pointed, if slightly more subtle, response. "I hope," he said, "that all three teams play well."

Perhaps if his players stopped committing red card offences then maybe, you know, they won't get so many red cards. Just a thought Jose, you sour, sour cunt

[Fredo]

Mourihno is credible in his own eyes only, the cock.

[Exiled_red]

Perhaps if his players stopped committing red card offences then maybe, you know, they won't get so many red cards. Just a thought Jose, you sour, sour cunt

[Shaggy]

We learnt that 11 against 11 we can compete, but I am tired of giving a team talk, talking, talking, talking, and then having to give another talk dealing with what we will do when we go down to ten men. I would like the chance to play then with eleven."

When they lost 5-0 Ramos was sent off the in 91st minute. His bull**** is even fooling commentators. Last night they kept saying "after Ramos got sent off in the last game they folded and lost 5-0"

[PTP]

League Game Draw - 2-2

Spanish Cup game - Barca 3-1

Nou Camp CL tie - Barca 2-0

Bernabeu CL tie - Real 3-1 - Barca through on away goals

got the result but not the score

[Angryred]

He was very orange, wasn't he?

Tangoed, was he?

[Shaggy]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/apr/18/real-madrid-critics-mourinho

Real Madrid stem the bleeding, but critics turn on Mourinho's medicine

José Mourinho's side avoided a sixth straight defeat against Barcelona, but not everyone enjoyed his 'prehistoric' tactics


José Mourinho's Real Madrid earned a draw against Pep Guardiola's Barcelona but his defensive approach was criticised. Photograph: Felix Ordonez/Reuters

Iker Casillas was furious. The veins on his head pulsating, a look of disgust creeping across his face, he screamed at his players. Slowly, they took heed. Some of them, anyway. Others simply ignored him; others barely looked, heading in the opposite direction. And the more they ignored him, the more annoyed he got. Pointing, shouting, remonstrating. Here! Now! ¡Joder! Until he became resigned to it; we'll just have to do it without you. Pepe, Marcelo, Sergio Ramos, Ricardo Carvalho and Emmanuel Adebayor all took up their positions near their captain, looked up … and began to applaud. The full-time whistle had gone and some had disappeared down the tunnel already. In the middle of the pitch, six players stayed and clapped. Up in the stands, Real Madrid's supporters clapped them back, cheering.

It was as if everyone was trying to convince themselves that they were happy, to externalise their optimism. But the image, celebration laced with irritation, said much. About uncertainty, about doubts, about priorities, about the awkwardness of the situation and, in part, about relations within Real Madrid's dressing room.

After the 1-1 draw with Barcelona on Saturday night, José Mourinho talked about the referee. He talked about red cards and 10 men. He talked about pride and satisfaction. He talked about his side undertaking a mission: impossible. He uttered an awful lot of words. But there was one word he did not utter, not once: "league". And nor did anyone else. No one asked. It was the elephant in the room – a great big white elephant, stamping and blowing its trunk and dumping on the floor.

One headline in AS the following morning said it all: "The cup is ours", which it still might not be, while the league is Barcelona's. The front covers of both of the capital's sports newspapers made no reference to the title at all. When Alvaro Arbeloa was asked about it, he shrugged almost surprised, resigned. "It's practically over," he said. Barcelona had just won the league title, but no one celebrated it. The Catalan dailies led on the league but the players were looking beyond it already, a little downbeat at having relinquished a lead. Andrés Iniesta called it "a pity". The TV footage of Barça fans on the Ramblas was pretty pathetic – a handful of randoms who had just stumbled out of Pans&Co, sandwiches in hand, dancing for the greatest human-magnet on earth: a TV camera. Not for the title.

Instead, the celebrations were in Madrid. It was there that the cheering was loudest. It was always likely to be this way – these four games were never going to live in isolation but rather feed off each other; the first game's real value came in how it set up the second, the third and the fourth. But the complete obliteration of the title was striking. The assumption was that, given their lead, Barcelona would win the league. Everyone knew that, but they expected resistance. Both sides looked relatively content to postpone hostilities, happy with the draw – even though Madrid were obliged to play for a win if they wanted to win the league. It is now impossible for them to accumulate as many points as Madrid did under Manuel Pellegrini last season.

Accumulating games is another matter. Madrid will play more than 10 more this season than last: progress in the Copa del Rey and in Europe, Madrid's great obsession, is a trump card. That has become the measure of success.

It is all about expectation, too. It is perhaps natural enough that Madrid should feel satisfied at gaining a draw having trailed by a goal and a man against Barcelona. All the more so when they lost 5-0 in November. This game was presented as being an opportunity to draw first blood. For Madrid, it became a chance to stem the bleeding. Madrid were not hammered by Barcelona; that run of five successive Barça wins has come to an end. "Losing a leg is not normally a positive outcome but when you see that shark fin in the water and you expect to be eaten alive, just losing a leg is a great result," writes David Gistau in El Mundo. "Anyone meeting Joe Pesci in the Nevada desert would be satisfied just to come out alive." The slate, they say, has been wiped clean; confidence has been restored.

But should it have been? What are the real consequences of the clásico? Are there any? Should that be the height of the expectations? And is Mourinho really a tactical genius? His approach was simple, not complex. The skill is not in its conception but its execution, its application. The skill is in the intensity and rigorousness with which it is applied, his ability to get players to follow his instructions, in building a team. But the image at the end hinted at an internal reality: division is not the word, but there is not an iron unity either, nor unshakable faith in the approach.

Besides, if the clásico is to be judged purely against results, still Barcelona were leading 1-0. Madrid came back into the game after Mourinho had taken off Xabi Alonso and Angel Di María – thinking less about turning the game round and more about protecting them for the cup final – and put on Mesut Ozil whom he had decided not to start. For all Mourinho's comments about the referee – designed to condition the future rather than complain about the past – Barcelona felt equally hard done by. And if this game was all about preparing for the cup final, was the exertion demanded on his players by chasing Barcelona much of the game – Madrid completed 179 passes to Barcelona's 740 – really beneficial?

There was something incongruous about Madrid celebrating a draw that cost them the league, about the way they relinquished the title. However pragmatic it may have been, there is a backlash against the style too, about an approach where the grass is left long and dry, and the passes are even longer. Critical questions are growing: Should a side that has spent over €400m in two years be so defensive? Is this Madrid's way? Does it reinforce Barcelona's advantage? It may be an entirely logical approach, but some are not happy. Two former coaches agreed: if we had done this, we'd have been sacked; a former Madrid player was privately spitting blood – this, he said, was not worthy of Madrid. And even mad Madridista Tomás Roncero, while talking up the "euphoria", admitted: "It can be hard to take the medicine when it tastes like castor oil."

The match report in AS described Mourinho's approach as "basic, not to say prehistoric". Marca's Santi Segurola called it "defensive, ugly and rough". "Let's not beat about the bush," added Roberto Palomar, "this clásico was crap: Madrid did not play like Madrid, they played like Inter." "In many ways", Juanma Trueba wrote, "the game was perfect for Mourinho: he was not hammered, he avoided defeat and he ended up with 10 players, fuelling his narrative for the next few days. But what would have been enough to sack other managers has come about after spending a fortune. If you win fine, but they didn't even win."

None of which would matter. They are, after all, discordant voices. Just as it did not matter when Johan Cruyff called Madrid's approach a "eulogy" to Barcelona's superiority. All the less so if Madrid win the Copa del Rey and the Champions League. Style is, in many ways, a red herring; the vast majority of fans just want to beat Barcelona – and Madrid did have chances on Saturday. More, in fact, than Barcelona. But some voices do matter and on Monday morning Alfredo Di Stéfano, Real Madrid's greatest ever player and the honorary president, spoke out too. "Barcelona's football was simply brilliant," he said in his weekly column. "Their superiority was there for the whole planet to see: the whites were cornered all game. Barcelona play football and dance. They treat the ball with adoration and respect, almost nurturing it. To see this team in action is a delight."

And Madrid? "Madrid," he said, "are a side with no personality. They just run back and forth constantly, tiring themselves out. We saw clearly that their approach was not the right one. Barcelona were a lion, Madrid a mouse."

Talking points

• Talking Points? Aye, right. Like anyone's talking about anything other than Madrid and Barcelona.

• Oh, go on then: Luis García and Levante we salute you! The third-best team in Spain in the second half of the season, they won yet again and are now unbeaten in eight. Even players who aren't Felipe Caicedo are getting goals these days: Rubén scored a beauty. They were supposed to be going down. Now they may even get a European place, alongside Athletic, who got a last-minute winner, and Sevilla. They're just three points off Espanyol in eighth, whose slide continues, and four away from Atlético Madrid in the seventh and final European spot.

• Mind you, Atlético have found their feet and Sunday's 2-2 draw with Espanyol was a Madrid-Barcelona clash that was properly entertaining. Both Atlético goals were gifts: the first a terrible mistake from Galán, the second a marvellous 'assist' from Jedward. Oddly enough, gifts apart, Atléti's recovery has come in the wake of ditching Diego Forlán.

• The beast is back. And, with him, so is a Málaga victory. They're out the relegation zone for the first time in 12 weeks (although a Zaragoza win on Monday night would put them back in it again).

• Adiós, Almería? Six points adrift, they're on their third coach of the season and, although they were the better side for a while against Valencia, they were beaten 3-0 and now look dead and buried. Next Monday they face Real Zaragoza, one of the two sides (along with Málaga) that they are most likely to have to chase down. Lose, and it really will be all over.

Results: Getafe 1-0 Sevilla, Malaga 3-0 Mallorca, Almería 0-0 Valencia, Real Madrid 1-1 Barcelona, Real Sociedad 2-1 Sporting, Levante 2-1 Hércules, Deportivo 2-0 Racing, Osasuna 1-2 Athletic, Espanyol 2-2 Atlético. Monday night: Villarreal v Zaragoza.

[Reece]

Can't be arsed to read all that, so I'll just say this:

**** off Mourinho

[Tee]

Mourinho is just so last season...

[Shaggy]

Madrid completed 179 passes to Barcelona's 740

Bloody hell.

[Shaggy]

JamesHorncastle James Horncastle
I wonder if Mourinho will react to Di Stefano's comments the same way he did Mazzola's last season...

[Shaggy]

Jose Mourinho's relationship with Spanish media sours further as Real Madrid prepare for next clásico confrontation

If a manager’s rapport with local reporters offers a gauge of his happiness at a club, Jose Mourinho is entering an endgame at Real Madrid.


Making a point: Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho was unhappy with the referee when his side battled Barcelona on Saturday night Photo: REUTERS

By Oliver Brown 8:51PM BST 17 Apr 2011

Digesting the 1-1 draw with Barcelona, an hors d’oeuvre in an unparalleled four-part helping of El Clásico, the irascible Portuguese stared down his inquisitors with a curled lip of contempt.

Mourinho had already infuriated Madrid journalist corps by sitting silently through a pre-match press conference, instead putting up assistant Aitor Karanka to deliver the briefing.

The attitude he exuded in the aftermath was scarcely more civil.

Rounding upon an opening question by the man from AS, he asked: “Are you the director of AS? If not, I can’t reply.

"According to your philosophy, if you won’t speak to my number two, I will speak only to the directors.”

His critics at Punto Pelota, a sports debate programme, were dealt with just as witheringly. “Punto Pelota didn’t have the respect to talk to someone who deserved respect,” he stonewalled.

“To a person who had won three European Cups with this club — and who has all the credibility to be my representative.”

The tit-for-tat tactic was childish, certainly, but of a piece with Mourinho’s traditional methods at moments of heightened pressure.

His transparent intention, in the midst of a four-game series that would decide the success of his debut season at Real, was to divert all the scrutiny from his players and on to himself.

What is more, the trick worked. While Pep Guardiola, his ever-smooth opposite number at Barcelona, has never had time for such machinations, Mourinho has drawn deeply upon his theatrical repertoire to find a psychological edge.

When he announced that he would be ignoring all those who had “disrespected” Karanka, not one person left the room.

It was a familiar incendiary display from Mourinho. Equally, it was hard to escape the impression that his air of disgruntlement mirrored the figure he cut in the final months of his time at Inter Milan.

Three months before sealing a treble, he threw away any goodwill he had built up with the Milanese media by claiming he “does not like” Italian football and “it doesn’t like me”.

Throw in the fact that his relationship with Jorge Valdano, Real’s sporting director, is frayed at best over the issue of player selection, and we may yet see his restoration to the Premier League before even a second season in Madrid has elapsed. After all, Mourinho keeps identifying England as his “natural habitat”.

First though, Mourinho has clásico season to face, and here there is apparently no ammunition he will not use in trying to stake out his advantage.

Before a ball against Barcelona had been kicked, he was turning his wiles upon Spain’s referees.

Real Madrid, he had suggested, would be training for the four matches with 10 men, such was their tendency — or misfortune, as he perceived it — to have players sent off against their old enemies.

The subtext did not need much unpicking: Real would, in Mourinho’s mind, be punished by the officials, and they needed to prepare for the worst.

He was prescient, at any rate, as Raul Albiol became on Saturday night the sixth Madrid player to be sent off in the last 13 clásico confrontations. Cesar Muniz Fernandez, the referee, proved impervious to any Mourinho paranoia.

Still, the manager raged against the fact that Dani Alves, whose foul on Marcelo conceded the penalty that Cristiano Ronaldo dispatched for a late equaliser, had not suffered the same treatment.

Ignoring evidence that the right-back had touched the ball, Mourinho said: “I don’t understand the reason why Dani Alves hasn’t seen a second yellow after conceding a foul in the area.

“Playing 10 against 10 for the last 10 minutes, it could have been a different story. With 11 versus 10, it was practically ‘mission impossible’. I’m a little tired of playing against Barca with 10 players.”

Still, it would be wrong to suppose that Mourinho was wallowing only in the negative.

When asked what lessons he could take from Real’s riposte for the Champions League deciders, he replied: “Only good things.”

[Shaggy]

DickinsonTimes Matt Dickinson
Long grass, long ball, creative player axed - I bet John Beck of mighty Cambridge Utd never thought he'd be copied by Real Madrid

[McDermotX]

Haha

[Baracus]

Perhaps if his players stopped committing red card offences then maybe, you know, they won't get so many red cards. Just a thought Jose, you sour, sour cunt

He's a d**k, he deliberately sends his players out to dive, cheat and hack to death any opposition player that has quality and with Barca its everyone, especially messi. Then he has the cheek to ask why they beat his teams with only 10 men. Take a bow son.


He still a winner thou.