The Special One: The Dark Side of Jose Mourinho

[Lario]

New book about Mourinho. Pure mentalist. First chapter below. If anyone comes across the full version, they might share the wealth.

 

CHAPTER 1

 

CRYING

On 8 May 2013, the employees of Gestão de Carreiras de Profi ssionais
Desportivos S.A., Gestifute, the most important agency in the football
industry, were to be found in a state of unusual excitement. José
Mourinho kept calling employees. They had heard him sobbing
loudly down the line and word quickly spread. The man most feared
by many in the company had been crushed.

The news that Sir Alex Ferguson had named David Moyes as
his successor as manager of Manchester United had caused an
earthquake. United, the most valuable club in the world according
to the stock market, were the equivalent of the great imperial
crown of football marketing, and the position of manager,
occupied for almost 27 years by a magnificent patriarch, had mythical
connotations.

The terms of Ferguson’s abdication were the ‘scoop’ most coveted
by the traffickers of the Premier League’s secrets. There were those
who had toiled for years preparing a web of privileged connections to
enable them to guess before anyone else when the vacancy would
occur. Jorge Mendes, president and owner of Gestifute, had more ties
with Old Trafford than any other agent. No agent had done as many
deals, nor such strange ones, with Ferguson. No one had more painstakingly
prepared an heir to the throne or succeeded in conveying the
idea to the media that there was a predestined successor. If this propaganda
had seeped into the consciousness of one man, that man was
the aspiring applicant himself. Mourinho, encouraged by his devoted
agent, believed that Ferguson was also an ally, a friend and protector.

He became convinced that they were united by a relationship of genuine
trust. He thought his own fabulous collection of trophies – two
European Champion Leagues, one UEFA Cup, seven league titles and
four domestic cups in four different countries – constituted a portfolio
far outstripping those of the other suitors. When he learned that
Ferguson had chosen David Moyes, the Everton manager, he was
struck by an awful sense of disbelief. Moyes had never won anything!

 

These were the most miserable hours of Mourinho’s time as
manager of Real Madrid. He endured them half asleep, half awake,
glued to his mobile phone in search of clarification during the night
of 7 to 8 May in the Sheraton Madrid Mirasierra hotel. He had arrived
in his silver Audi in the afternoon along with his 12-year-old son,
José Mario, with no suspicion of what was coming. On his left wrist
he wore his €20,000 deLaCour ‘Mourinho City Ego’ watch, with the
words ‘I am not afraid of the consequences of my decisions’ inscribed
on the casing of sapphire crystal.

Mourinho was fascinated by luxury watches. He not only wore his
sponsor’s brand – he collected watches compulsively. He maintained
that you could not wear just any object on your wrist, stressing the
need for something unique and distinguished intimately touching
your skin.

That afternoon he was preparing to meet up with his team before
playing the 36th league game of the season against Málaga at the
Bernabéu. He was more than a little upset. He knew that his reputation
as a charismatic leader was damaged, something he attributed to
his stay in Chamartín. The behaviour of the Spanish seemed suffocating:
the organisation of the club had never come up to his expectations
and he was sick of his players. He had told the president,
Florentino Pérez, that they had been disloyal, and to show his
contempt he had decided not to travel with them on the team bus but
make his own way to the hotel in a symbolic gesture that cut him off
from the squad.

 

He was met by members of the radical supporters’ group ‘Ultras Sur’,

who unravelled a 60-foot banner near the entrance of the Sheraton.

 

‘Mou, we love you’, it said.

 

When the squad arrived and the players began to file off the bus,

one of the fans, hidden behind the banner, expressed the widespread

feeling in this, the most violent sector of Madrid’s supporters.

‘Casillas! Stop blabbing and go fuck yourself!’

The suspicion that Casillas, the captain and the player closest to the
fans, was a source of leaks had been formulated by Mourinho and the
idea had penetrated to the heart of the club. Perez and his advisors
claimed that for months the coach had insisted that the goalkeeper
had a pernicious nature. When the suspicion was reported in certain
sections of the media, the club did very little to rebuff it. The subject
was the topic of radio and television sports debate programmes;
everyone had an opinion on the matter except the goalkeeper himself,
whose silence was enough to make many fans believe he was guilty.

To complete his work of discrediting Casillas, Mourinho gave a press
conference that same afternoon, suggesting that the goalkeeper was
capable of trying to manipulate coaches to win his place in the team.

‘Just as Casillas can come and say, “I’d like a coach such as Del
Bosque or Pellegrini, a more manageable coach,”’ he said, ‘it’s also
legitimate for me to say the same thing. As the coach it’s legitimate for
me to say, “I like Diego López.” And with me in charge, while I’m the
coach of Madrid, Diego López will play. There’s no story.’

The atmosphere at the Sheraton was gloomy that night, with
contradictory rumours from England circulating about the retirement
of Ferguson. The online pages of the Mirror and Sun off ered a
disturbing picture. Mourinho was certain that if Sir Alex had taken
such a decision he would have at least called to tell him. But there had
been nothing. According to the people from Gestifute who lent him
logistical support he had not received as much as a text message. Th e
hours of anxiety were slowly getting to him, and he made calls until
dawn to try to confirm the details with journalists and British friends.

Mendes heard the definitive news about Ferguson straight away from
another Gestifute employee but did not dare tell Mourinho the truth
– that he had never stood the slightest chance.

Mourinho was tormented by the memory of Sir Bobby Charlton’s
interview in the Guardian in December 2012. Th e verdict of the
legendary former player and member of the United board had greatly
unsettled him. When asked if he saw Mourinho as a successor to
Ferguson, Charlton said, ‘A United manager would not do what he
did to Tito Vilanova,’ referring to the finger in the eye incident.
‘Mourinho is a really good coach, but that’s as far as I’d go.’ And as far
as the admiration Ferguson had for Mourinho was concerned, the
veteran said it was a fiction: ‘He does not like him too much.’

Mourinho preferred to believe the things that Ferguson had
personally told him rather than be bothered by what a newspaper
claimed Charlton had said. But that night, the venerable fi gure of Sir
Bobby assaulted his imagination with telling force. Mourinho had
turned 50 and perhaps thoughts of his own mortality crossed his
mind. There would be no more Manchester United for him. No more
colossal dreams. Only reality. Only his decline in Spain devouring his
prestige by the minute. Only Abramovich’s outstretched hand.
In the morning he called Mendes, asking him to get in touch with
United urgently. Right until the end, he wanted his agent to exert
pressure on the English club in an attempt to block any deal.

 

It was an act of desperation. Both men knew that Mendes had put Mourinho
on the market a year ago. David Gill, United’s chief executive, had
held regular talks with Gestifute and was aware of Mourinho’s availability
but he was not interested in him as a manager. He had told
Mendes in the autumn of 2012 that Ferguson’s first choice was Pep
Guardiola and had explained the reasons. At Gestifute, the message
of one United executive seemed particularly pertinent: ‘Th e problem
is, when things don’t go well for “Mou”, he does not follow the club’s
line. He follows José’s line.’

 

What most frightened Mourinho was that public opinion would
conclude he had made a fool of himself. He felt cheated by Ferguson
and feared people might stop taking him seriously. For years, the
propaganda machine acting on his behalf had made quite a fuss of the
friendship between the two men; this was now revealed to be a
fantasy. To make these latest events seem coherent, Gestifute advisors
told him to say that he already knew everything because Ferguson
had called to inform him. On 9 May someone at Gestifute got in
touch with a journalist at the daily newspaper Record to tell them that
Ferguson had offered his crown to Mourinho four months ago, but
that he had rejected it because his wife preferred to live in London,
and for that reason he was now leaning towards going back to Chelsea.

 

Meanwhile, Mourinho gave an interview on Sky in which he stated
that Ferguson had made him aware of his intentions, but never made
him the off er because he knew that he wanted to coach Chelsea. The
contradictions were not planned.

From that fateful 7 May onwards Mourinho was weighed down by
something approaching a deep depression. For two weeks he disappeared
from the public eye and barely spoke to his players. For the
first time in years, the Spanish and the Portuguese press – watching
from a distance – agreed that they were watching a lunatic. On 17
May Real played the fi nal of the Copa del Rey against Atlético Madrid.
The preparation for the game made the players anticipate the worst.

The sense of mutual resentment was overbearing. If Mourinho felt
betrayed, the squad saw him as someone whose influence could
destroy anyone’s career. If he had jeopardised Casillas’s future, the
most formidable captain in the history of Spanish football, how were
the other players to feel? A witness who watched events unfold from
within Valdebebas described the appalling situation: the players
didn’t mind losing because it meant that Mourinho lost. It didn’t
matter to Mourinho, either, and so they lost.

On 16 May the manager showed up at the team hotel with a sketch
of a trivote under his arm. ‘Trivote’ was the term the players used to
describe the tactical model that Mourinho claimed to have invented.
It was executed by different players according to the circumstances.
Th e plan, presented on the screen of the hotel, had Modrić, Alonso
and Khedira as the chosen trio in midfield. This meant that the team’s
most creative player, Özil, was shift ed out to the right to a position
where he felt isolated. Benzema and Ronaldo were up front. Essien,
Albiol, Ramos and Coentrão were to play at the back, with Diego
López in goal.

Mourinho’s team-talks had always been characterised by a hypnotic
infl ammation. Th e man vibrated. Every idea that he transmitted
seemed to be coming directly from the core of his nervous system.
That day this did not happen. He had spent a long time isolated in his
office – absorbed, sunken-eyed, pale, melancholic. Th e players were
at a loss as to why. Some interpreted it as sheer indolence, others saw
him as quite simply lost, as if he were saying things he did not
understand.

‘He looked like a hologram,’ recalled one assistant.
‘All that was missing was a yawn,’ said another.
Th e room fell into a tense silence. Th e coach was proposing something
on the board that they had not practised all week.

Incomprehensible, maybe, but a regular occurrence in recent months.
He told them that aft er years implementing this system they should
understand it so well that they didn’t need to practise it. They would
have to content themselves with understanding how he wanted them
to attack. As usual, the most complex job was allocated to Özil. The
German had to cover the wing when the team did not have the ball.
When possession was regained he had to move to a more central
position and link up with Modrić.

The players understood that to gain width and get behind Atlético
the logical thing would have been to put a winger on the right, somebody
like Di María, leave Özil in the centre and drop Modrić back
into Khedira’s position. But the coach believed that because Modrić
lacked the necessary physical attributes, he needed to support the
defensive base of the team with Khedira. No one spoke up against the
plan. For years the communication between the leader and his subordinates
had been a one-way street.

This time, however, it was because there was just nothing to say.

The team-talk was brief. Th e players were left wondering why on
earth they had to defensively reinforce the midfi eld with Khedira
against an Atlético side who were hardly going to attack them. But,
mute, they merely obeyed.
For the club with the largest budget in the world, the Copa del Rey
was a lesser objective. Finding out that the final would be played in
their stadium distressed the directors. Aft er losing the league and the
Champions League, the season had little left to offer. A final against
Atlético in Chamartín was in many ways a no-win situation. The joke
had been doing the rounds since the team beat Barça at the Camp
Nou to qualify, that the president had been heard to say that a fi nal
in the Bernabéu against Atlético was about as attractive as a ‘punch
bag’.

The ticket prices fixed by the clubs and the Spanish Football
Federation set a new record. Despite the economic crisis that was
crushing Spain this was the most expensive cup final in history. Prices
ranged from €50 to €275. Attending the FA Cup at Wembley cost
between €53 and €136, and German cup final tickets went from
between €35 and €125. At the Coppa Italia the price ranged from €30
to €120. That afternoon, as was to be expected, there were empty
seats.

Ronaldo headed in a Modrić corner, putting Madrid 1–0 up in the
14th minute. Following to the letter instructions that were now three
years old, the team retreated to protect the lead, giving up space and
possession to their opponents. Their opponents’ situation looked
impossible. Madrid had a more expensive constellation of star players
than had ever been brought together. And against them they did not
have the Atlético of Schuster, Vizcaíno, Donato, Manolo and Futre
that had faced them in the fi nal of 1992. Here instead were was Koke
Resurrección, Gabi Fernández, Mario Suárez, Falcao, Arda and Costa.

 

For an hour and a half, both teams cancelled each other out in the
most extravagant manner possible. They tried to see who could go for
longer without the ball. It was a fierce competition. Atlético dropped
their level of possession to 40 per cent. Madrid had the remaining 60
per cent, but did not know how to manage it because Marcelo had
been marginalised, Alonso was tired, Özil was suffering off -radar and
Khedira was unable to channel the team’s attacks. Atlético took cover
and in two lightning counter-attacks settled the match. First, Diego
Costa scored after Falcao had taken advantage of a mistake by Albiol.

Then, in extra time, Miranda headed in to make it 2–1, after Diego
López made an error coming off his line.
Albiol had replaced Pepe, left out and watching from the stands
because of his insurrection. Pepe called for more ‘respect’ to be shown
to Casillas and in response was cleansed. Within hours the defender
went from being the manager’s right-hand man on the pitch to
becoming the object of a public trial.

The emergence of rising star Varane was the excuse. ‘It’s not
easy for a man of 31 years, with a standing and a past, being steamrollered
by a child of 19 like Varane,’ said Mourinho. ‘But it’s the law of life.’

Varane could not play in the final because of injury. Even so, Pepe
watched the game from the stands, giving up his place to Albiol, who
had not played regularly for months. Some of the players believed
they recognised in this decision the clearest evidence that part of
Mourinho’s selection-process was based on a dark code of loyalty
even when it was to the detriment of the functioning of the team.
When the referee sent Mourinho off for protesting, Pepe went
down to the bench and, in complete violation of the regulations,
installed himself in the technical area. It was unprecedented behaviour
as he took over from Aitor Karanka, the assistant coach, giving
instructions to his colleagues from the touchline as if he were the
manager. Not that it prevented an Atlético victory.

Karanka remained confused all evening. His boss had departed the
stage, leaving him alone. Breaking protocol, Mourinho did not go up
to receive the medal that King Juan Carlos had prepared to honour
the coach of the losing team. Instead, it was Karanka who came up
the stairs in front of the defeated players. On seeing him, the king
grabbed the piece of silver and turned to the Spanish Football
Federation president Ángel María Villar, seeking clarification:
‘Shall I give it to him?’

And so it was an embarrassed Karanka who received the salver,
while Mourinho went to the press conference room to pronounce his
final words as the official representative of Madrid. Three years of
stirring rhetoric, shrill speeches, sessions of indoctrination, warnings,
complaints and entertaining monologues were interrupted by a
confession. Th ere was no hiding from the fact that in his final year he
had won nothing.

Never in the history of Real Madrid had a coach been more powerful
and yet more miserable; nor one more willing to terminate his
contract with the club, happy to end an adventure that had become a
torment.

‘This is the worst season of my career,’ he said.

[bonesman]

We are Liverpool Tra la la la la...

[Dr Nowt]

Fuck him, his crippled soul and his cunty snide histrionics.

 

I don't need to lift a manhole cover up to know what runs through the sewers and I don't need to read a book on this shitstain to know what he is.

[Lee909]

Its pretty funny that Mourinho's ego and antics have cost him the Real Madrid job, he will never get the Barcelona job, we wouldn't touch him imo, the mancs don't want him. I doubt Bayern would ever touch him either. He has pushed himself into a corner were only oil barrons who own clubs without the history and glamour will give him a job. Its that or go back to Italy a league that is a shadow of what it used to be.

[Section_31]

What a bellend.

[index1000]

What hysterical bollocks that is. Fitting really.

[redinthehead]

Hardly surprised to read that he is a petulant child. 

[TheDrowningMan]

Yep, as I suspected, Mourinho getting "revenge" for 2005 will definitely be a higher priority for him than winning the CL. That's just the type of character he is. I don't think anyone could reasonably refute that.

 

I don't know if tonight's Chelsea will consist of the best players available to him, but Sunday's definitely will.

[Jairzinho]

That book sounds ace.

 

Mourinho, essentially, got outcunted by Taggart. Rookie mistake from Mourinho, especially as a massive egotistical, repulsive, fucking cunt himself, to trust someone with all the redeeming personality traits of an outbreak of cholera.

[Lee909]

He is a snidey, spiteful prick. The eye poke bullshit at Real showed everything about him.

[Lario]

That book sounds ace.

 

Certainly does.

 

There's another excerpt doing the rounds, that I can't find at the minute, where he's in the changing room with all the players and apparently someone's leaked the team to the opposition. Supposedly he's on his knees in tears calling all the Real Madrid players "sons of bitches".

[Lario]

Found it!

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The presence of a mole at Real Madrid worried Mourinho so much that between 2011 and 2012 he ordered two sweeps of the hotel where the team stayed to search for hidden microphones. The investigations were unsuccessful. The Sheraton Mirasierra was apparently clean.

The control of information was another thing that deeply exercised Mourinho; he assigned a group of people to carry out a daily analysis of everything that the media said about him. Every morning Mourinho received a package containing the summary. His day began at 8am in his office at Valdebebas, studying videos, articles and broadcasts. He realised that he and his colleagues were not the only sources of the content, and that certain things that were being published did not exactly project an image of infallibility.

He began to suspect that there were leaks in his organisation. The proximity of the Clásico ramped up his sense of suspicion. According to club sources, the growing fear of leaks made Mourinho ask the directors to set up a study of the phone records of players and club employees. Some players were warned about this informally, as it was in their interest to be careful about whom they spoke to on their mobiles. The secrecy, however, did not prevent the boss’s intentions becoming widely known. In fact they were obvious in every training session.

At 5pm on 16 April 2011, shortly before Madrid’s home league match against Barcelona, the newspaper Marca reported in its online edition that Madrid would play Pepe in midfield, along with Khedira and Alonso. The team selection was unprecedented: Casillas, Ramos, Albiol, Carvalho, Marcelo, Pepe, Khedira, Alonso, Di María, Ronaldo and Benzema.

The 1-1 draw did not help the home team’s title chances but the crowd applauded their team off with a certain relief, Barça’s last couple of visits having ended with scores of 0–2 and 2–6, and filed out of the stadium reasonably content. Not so Mourinho.

He waited for the team in the dressing room before issuing a torrent of accusations and insults that distorted his face until he began to sob loudly: “You’re traitors. I asked you not to speak with anyone about the team selection but you’ve betrayed me. It shows that you’re not on my side. You’re sons of bitches.

“The only friend I have in this dressing room is Granero . . . and I’m not even sure that I can trust him any more. You’ve left me all on my own. You’re the most treacherous squad I’ve had in my life. Nothing more than sons of bitches.”

Casillas did not wait for the outburst to finish. He pretended that nothing was happening, turned around and went to the shower; he was not the only one who ignored the commotion. But Mourinho was filled with such intense emotion that he grabbed a can of Red Bull and hurled it against the wall. It exploded and drops of the sugary energy drink ran down the faces of those nearest to him.

Squatting on the ground — some say he was kneeling — he rattled off a further series of insults, then, getting up, he wiped the tears from his face and announced that he was going to speak with Pérez [Real’s president] and Sánchez [a director] because they would be able to find the mole. He promised reprisals and also made an analogy between martial law and football: “If I’m in Vietnam and I see you laugh at a mate, I’d grab a gun with my own hands and kill you. Now it’s you yourselves who have to look for the one that leaked the line-up.”

For everyone present it was difficult to work out if what they had seen was a real loss of emotional control or a piece of spontaneous theatre. By improvisation or calculation, Mourinho had ensured that everyone had been on edge. The team had been emotionally stirred up and he had adjusted the final details of his grand tactical plan. All his work, all his energy, the planning of more than nine months, were now focused on one goal: to reach a state of ecstasy in the final of the Copa del Rey in Valencia on 20 April.

The days were filled with impassioned talk until finally 20 April arrived. He talked about politics, about nationalism, about the inexorable division between the Castilian and Catalan peoples. He told the players that they had nothing in common with Barça. He knew, he said, because he had lived in Barcelona for many years, and was well aware of the local culture and the education that Catalan children receive. He explained that people like Puyol, Busquets, Xavi and Piqué had been taught from childhood to distance themselves from Spaniards such as Casillas, Ramos and Arbeloa.

He insisted that his players were wrong if they thought they had made friendships with the Barça players over their years together in the Spanish national team. The Barça players were not their friends because they took advantage of this supposed friendship by betraying the Madrid players, trying to snatch their prestige from them through their manipulation of the press.

They, the Madrid players, were not to participate in this charade any more. They must accept their role as bad guys and should refuse to acknowledge their rivals. Mourinho warned his players that if he saw any of them shaking hands outside of the formalities of the game they would be turning their backs on him — and on their team-mates. Anyone making any such friendly gesture towards the opposition ran the risk of becoming something very much like a traitor.

[magicrat]

Yep, as I suspected, Mourinho getting "revenge" for 2005 will definitely be a higher priority for him than winning the CL. That's just the type of character he is. I don't think anyone could reasonably refute that.

 

I don't know if tonight's Chelsea will consist of the best players available to him, but Sunday's definitely will.

I'm pretty sure Abramocash will have made clear what he wants and I doubt it will be a pyrrhic at Anfield at the expense of a CL final if they're in with a realistic shout after tonight.

[Einch]

That book sounds ace.

 

Mourinho, essentially, got outcunted by Taggart. Rookie mistake from Mourinho, especially as a massive egotistical, repulsive, fucking cunt himself, to trust someone with all the redeeming personality traits of an outbreak of cholera.

 

Outcunted. Brilliant and duly repped.

[Bjornebye]

If there is a man in football that fingers his own arse with strawberry lube its him. 

[TheDrowningMan]

I'm pretty sure Abramocash will have made clear what he wants and I doubt it will be a pyrrhic at Anfield at the expense of a CL final if they're in with a realistic shout after tonight.

 

Unless he plans on sacking Mourinho before the game, I doubt that means much. Mourinho will do what he wants, even if it gets him the sack. He'll burn down any Bridge if doing so will sate his ego.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

If there is a man in football that fingers his own arse with strawberry lube its him.

Allardyce is much the same, only he uses a mixture of beef dripping and bacon grease.

[Babb'sBurstNad]

Sounds good. It'd make a great graphic novel - a double pager for him crying - or perhaps an audio book with Mourinho being voiced by Steve Coogan in his Tony Ferrino guise.

[BCM]

My god he is a massive twat.

Its interesting though reading that. Im not as certain he wouldnt incur the wrath of rentboy fans and drop everything if there was a hint of the Utd job. After gushing about them when he went back, he would be despised by their lot if he dropped them for the Mancs.

It was obvious at the time, but its pretty much nailed on now that he was desperate for the job after fergie, and then buttered up the rentboy fans cos he didnt get  it.

[Trucker Paddy]

Listened to a podcast last week and the author was on it, made me hate that cunt even more

[Reckoner]

Can someone please sum all this up for me?

[Dr. J]

Can someone please sum all this up for me?

 

He's more of a cunt than we thought. In fact, he's a psychocunt.

[Anubis]

The allegation his mental health is deteriorating may not be too wide of the mark. I know we've all been taking the piss about him dressing like a tramp, but a deterioration in personal hygiene and clothing often goes hand in hand with a deterioration in mental health.

[ZonkoVille77]

Defo give him the manc job then if that's the case.

[Mathewbet1]

'Pissed up tramp sniffer required for top post, previous guy was a shite ginner, apply within'