"Not on the level of Guardiola and Enrique": is Mourinho still a top-class manager?

Talk turned to the character of the Portuguese coach and how the controversy that has followed his career has shaped his image.

One participant put it plainly: "What Mourinho does is not something artificial, and it is not a shield he hides behind. Mourinho is like this," before summing up the idea by saying: "You have to take the whole package from him."

Others took a different view. Mourinho, they argued, has the right to grow and to fix the behaviours he sees as mistakes, stressing that "everyone has the right to redirect the things they realise they got wrong."

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Mourinho's current standing as a coach split the room. One participant rated him a "very good coach" but argued he no longer operates on the same footballing level as Guardiola or Luis Enrique.

Back came the reply: "Mourinho is first class, first, first."

His defenders insisted the Portuguese "innovated and made his teams competitive", and that his mark on the game runs deeper than the results of the sides he has taken charge of in recent years.

Critics saw it differently. They pointed to his recent career and the dwindling trophy count, recalling his time at Roma, that Europa League final defeat to Sevilla, and the spells in Turkey and Portugal that followed.

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The discussion closed by digging into why Real Madrid turned to Mourinho. Some in the room believed the club wanted more than a footballing model. They were chasing a certain character, a different way of handling the biggest games.

"Real Madrid signed Mourinho because he is an institution, and because he represents a way of being," one of them said, nodding to his first spell at the club and his knack for going toe to toe with Barcelona.

Results, in the end, will settle it. Mourinho's real fight, as the panel put it, "will not be his personal battle, but rather an attempt to make Real Madrid win".

He returns to a club desperate to rewrite the story of recent seasons. Two years have passed without a La Liga title as Barcelona have dominated. The discussion ended on a line that summed it up: "Mourinho is what Florentino Pérez brings".

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