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Spanish Inquisition: Are Real Madrid’s Early Season Misgivings Cause For Jose Mourinho To Be Concerned?
Goal.com’s Cyrus C. Malek addresses Madrid’s slow start within the context of relentless pressure to perform from a stellar Barcelona…
| Bet: | Returns: | Osasuna £90.00 | Draw £47.50 | Barcelona £13.33 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Osasuna £85.00 | Draw £47.50 | Barcelona £13.60 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Osasuna £90.00 | Draw £45.00 | Barcelona £13.64 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Osasuna £95.00 | Draw £50.00 | Barcelona £13.30 |
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| Bet: | Returns: | Osasuna £85.00 | Draw £45.00 | Barcelona £13.10 |
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Sep 9, 2010 11:40:00 AM
By Cyrus C. Malek
Just one match into the Liga season and already Real Madrid are playing catch up.
Normally, beginning a commentary with such a sentence would be laughable, absurd even. Quite obviously, there is still an entire campaign of 37 remaining matches to be played - a bounty of 111 potential points up for the taking. To suggest that Los Blancos are already facing dire circumstances would be a sensationalist claim at best and a dismissible one at worst. Having said that, some Spanish publications have made a pretty penny during the international break with just this sort of suggestive and dramatic fear mongering.
But while the situation is neither grave nor remotely near a cause for panic, there are a few things about Real Madrid’s early two-point surrender that might bring about potential sources of concern - namely, Barcelona.
Last season the Blaugrana earned an historic 99 points in the table as they claimed their 20th league title in club history. Out of the 114 points available in La Liga, such a finish constituted an 86% earning of the season’s total possible points. Even more daunting (or disheartening depending upon one’s perspective) is the possibility, perhaps even likelihood, that Barca will be even better this year. After all, Lionel Messi has become even more adept at playing all over the pitch, having dramatically improved his right foot, the Spanish internationals have the invaluable experience of having won a World cup this past summer, and Barca added (at least) another 21 goals in the summer acquisition of David Villa. New signing Javier Mascherano hasn’t even set foot on the pitch yet.
Yes, as competition begins to heat up and fixtures become both more frequent and taxing, Pep Guardiola’s men will inevitably drop points. Perfection, after all, is a practical impossibility. But the fact remains that Barcelona do not give up points often and during the course of the season, they can make a two-point margin seem like a twenty point gulf. As it stands, the Catalan giants are hands down the best team in club football - but that is precisely why Jose Mourinho took the job at Real Madrid.
“I am a coach, not Harry Potter”, said the Special One in response to a question from the Spanish press addressing Madrid’s slow start to the season at Mallorca, the first of what promises to be a collection of Mourinho’s habitually entertaining sound bites during his tenure at the Bernabeu.
He is right, of course; as of the return of Madrid’s international players this week, the Portuguese coach have had just seven training sessions with his final squad (i.e. the full squad including the late-transfer signing of Mesut Oezil). It would be sorely unrealistic to believe that Mou could have the team playing silky smooth football in such a short amount of time.
On the other hand, retaining a coaching job at a club like Real Madrid necessitates the ability to work miracles and work them fast. Last year at Inter, Mourinho had a slow start, losing the Supercoppa Italiana to Lazio, managing only a 1-1 draw at home in his opening Serie A match against modest Bari, drawing his opening Champions League match against Barca in a goalless draw, and taking a 2-0 thrashing at the Camp Nou in the return leg of the Champions League group stage as late as November 24th. Yet in the end, when it really mattered, the Portuguese coach had his team lifting all the trophies.
The trouble is that in playing in the same league as an established and long-completed team like Barcelona, Mourinho may not have the same luxury of time that he had at Inter for his team to take hold of his direction and begin playing as a cohesive unit.
By the time Madrid begin to exhibit attractive play and turn out impressive results, Barca may well have jumped out to a seven or eight point lead and that would be a very difficult margin to make up - especially considering they won La Liga by a three-point margin last season; that seemingly narrow margin did not truly reflect Barca’s firm hold of the lead. As Barca legend Johan Cruyff warned in his weekly column of the Catalan publication El Periodico, Madrid must find their form quickly or risk trailing the Blaugrana for the entirety of the season, thus surrendering a third consecutive Primera Division crown.
The injuries do not seem to be helping either. In seven matches (including the pre-season), Madrid lost nine players to injury: Kaka, Fernando Gago, Ezequiel Garay, Raul Albiol, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lassana Diarra, Mahamadou Diarra, Pepe, and Karim Benzema. The latter four have either achieved or are near a full recovery and Ronaldo does not look to be far behind, but the injury bug has not left Los Blancos in the most favourable of positions and has made Mourinho’s work more difficult than it already is.
Of course, the wild card is El Clasico. For the past two years, Barcelona have claimed the full three points in both the home and away fixtures, giving Pep Guardiola a 100% record against Los Blancos as a first team coach: that’s a six-point swing each season in Barca’s favour, which, as mentioned above, is significant given the extent of Catalan dominance.
“I know how to play against Barcelona. One can deactivate Barca by imposing one’s own style. If you try to play as they do, you lose. I know that. They want their rivals to play them as they play because that’s how they kill you. With Barca, one cannot be kind or passive. One has to disarm them from the first minute”. In another set of Mourinho’s declarative statements, the coach demonstrated his unwavering confidence in his ability and self-belief.
He set a strong precedent by storming the Camp Nou pitch amid the showers of a “malfunctioning” sprinkler system last season in the Champions League semi-finals. But the stakes are much higher this time and for the Special One to become special in the Spanish capital, he must not only reproduce the result but also do so with style.
So while Los Blancos currently seem somewhat disjointed and there is still much work to be done to bring La Liga’s youngest team (in terms of average age) to the level demanded by the club hierarchy and the Bernabeu faithful, one must keep in mind that this is Jose Mourinho at the helm. He has time and again proven what he can do in the face of overwhelming prejudice. Getting there, however, requires time and patience and while the pressure may be coming from the Blaugrana to secure results here and now, these are qualities the white half of Madrid must learn if it is ever to taste Champions League glory again.
Normally, beginning a commentary with such a sentence would be laughable, absurd even. Quite obviously, there is still an entire campaign of 37 remaining matches to be played - a bounty of 111 potential points up for the taking. To suggest that Los Blancos are already facing dire circumstances would be a sensationalist claim at best and a dismissible one at worst. Having said that, some Spanish publications have made a pretty penny during the international break with just this sort of suggestive and dramatic fear mongering.
But while the situation is neither grave nor remotely near a cause for panic, there are a few things about Real Madrid’s early two-point surrender that might bring about potential sources of concern - namely, Barcelona.
Last season the Blaugrana earned an historic 99 points in the table as they claimed their 20th league title in club history. Out of the 114 points available in La Liga, such a finish constituted an 86% earning of the season’s total possible points. Even more daunting (or disheartening depending upon one’s perspective) is the possibility, perhaps even likelihood, that Barca will be even better this year. After all, Lionel Messi has become even more adept at playing all over the pitch, having dramatically improved his right foot, the Spanish internationals have the invaluable experience of having won a World cup this past summer, and Barca added (at least) another 21 goals in the summer acquisition of David Villa. New signing Javier Mascherano hasn’t even set foot on the pitch yet.
Yes, as competition begins to heat up and fixtures become both more frequent and taxing, Pep Guardiola’s men will inevitably drop points. Perfection, after all, is a practical impossibility. But the fact remains that Barcelona do not give up points often and during the course of the season, they can make a two-point margin seem like a twenty point gulf. As it stands, the Catalan giants are hands down the best team in club football - but that is precisely why Jose Mourinho took the job at Real Madrid.
“I am a coach, not Harry Potter”, said the Special One in response to a question from the Spanish press addressing Madrid’s slow start to the season at Mallorca, the first of what promises to be a collection of Mourinho’s habitually entertaining sound bites during his tenure at the Bernabeu.
He is right, of course; as of the return of Madrid’s international players this week, the Portuguese coach have had just seven training sessions with his final squad (i.e. the full squad including the late-transfer signing of Mesut Oezil). It would be sorely unrealistic to believe that Mou could have the team playing silky smooth football in such a short amount of time.
On the other hand, retaining a coaching job at a club like Real Madrid necessitates the ability to work miracles and work them fast. Last year at Inter, Mourinho had a slow start, losing the Supercoppa Italiana to Lazio, managing only a 1-1 draw at home in his opening Serie A match against modest Bari, drawing his opening Champions League match against Barca in a goalless draw, and taking a 2-0 thrashing at the Camp Nou in the return leg of the Champions League group stage as late as November 24th. Yet in the end, when it really mattered, the Portuguese coach had his team lifting all the trophies.
The trouble is that in playing in the same league as an established and long-completed team like Barcelona, Mourinho may not have the same luxury of time that he had at Inter for his team to take hold of his direction and begin playing as a cohesive unit.
By the time Madrid begin to exhibit attractive play and turn out impressive results, Barca may well have jumped out to a seven or eight point lead and that would be a very difficult margin to make up - especially considering they won La Liga by a three-point margin last season; that seemingly narrow margin did not truly reflect Barca’s firm hold of the lead. As Barca legend Johan Cruyff warned in his weekly column of the Catalan publication El Periodico, Madrid must find their form quickly or risk trailing the Blaugrana for the entirety of the season, thus surrendering a third consecutive Primera Division crown.
The injuries do not seem to be helping either. In seven matches (including the pre-season), Madrid lost nine players to injury: Kaka, Fernando Gago, Ezequiel Garay, Raul Albiol, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lassana Diarra, Mahamadou Diarra, Pepe, and Karim Benzema. The latter four have either achieved or are near a full recovery and Ronaldo does not look to be far behind, but the injury bug has not left Los Blancos in the most favourable of positions and has made Mourinho’s work more difficult than it already is.
Of course, the wild card is El Clasico. For the past two years, Barcelona have claimed the full three points in both the home and away fixtures, giving Pep Guardiola a 100% record against Los Blancos as a first team coach: that’s a six-point swing each season in Barca’s favour, which, as mentioned above, is significant given the extent of Catalan dominance.
“I know how to play against Barcelona. One can deactivate Barca by imposing one’s own style. If you try to play as they do, you lose. I know that. They want their rivals to play them as they play because that’s how they kill you. With Barca, one cannot be kind or passive. One has to disarm them from the first minute”. In another set of Mourinho’s declarative statements, the coach demonstrated his unwavering confidence in his ability and self-belief.
He set a strong precedent by storming the Camp Nou pitch amid the showers of a “malfunctioning” sprinkler system last season in the Champions League semi-finals. But the stakes are much higher this time and for the Special One to become special in the Spanish capital, he must not only reproduce the result but also do so with style.
So while Los Blancos currently seem somewhat disjointed and there is still much work to be done to bring La Liga’s youngest team (in terms of average age) to the level demanded by the club hierarchy and the Bernabeu faithful, one must keep in mind that this is Jose Mourinho at the helm. He has time and again proven what he can do in the face of overwhelming prejudice. Getting there, however, requires time and patience and while the pressure may be coming from the Blaugrana to secure results here and now, these are qualities the white half of Madrid must learn if it is ever to taste Champions League glory again.
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Goal.com Poll
Poll runs from Sep 9, 2010 to Sep 17, 2010
Poll runs from Sep 9, 2010 to Sep 17, 2010
Are Real Madrid's Early-Season Misgivings A Cause For Concern For Jose Mourinho?
No, Mourinho will overtake Barca through El Clasico
55.99%
Yes, Mourinho should be worried of Barca running away
44.01%
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