Even for Mourinho his post match outburst was extraordinary, accusing Barcelona of having favour among referees, and doing all he could to deflect attention from the fact that his tactics had been exposed by a better team.
It is worth paying attention to what happened on the field when the ball was in play for a few moments. Barcelona simply dominated possession, out-passing and out-thinking Mourinho’s men. Their first goal may have been ordinary by their standards, but Lionel Messi’s second just showed what was so special about Real’s opponents .The 5”5 winger simply out-thought and tricked his way past bigger, stronger opponents to put Barcelona 2-0 ahead.
Yet Mourinho, for all his success with Porto, Chelsea and Inter Milan, seems to have taken on a challenge not even he can win. The ego of the Portuguese drove him to the Bernabeu, to take on one of the greatest teams in world football history, Barcelona.
Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering side slaughtered Real 5-0 earlier this season, and though the last fortnight’s Clasicos have been far closer, with Barcelona winning them 3-2 overall, the Catalans still have the edge.
Mourinho’s approach is sophisticated. He is meticulous in his preparation, and his man management skills are incredible. To get Christiano Ronaldo to adhere to tactical instructions, even vaguely, is a remarkable achievement. But Mourinho’s problem is that his approach is inherently inferior to that of his rival, Guardiola.
Barcelona is a team honed for the last 15 years. It has its origins in the Johan Cruyff side of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ‘dream team’ which enthralled Spain and Europe, and which laid out the principles on which Barcelona’s youth system would be based; ball retention, intelligence and movement. Barcelona’s team is made up of players – Xavi, Busquets, Messi, Iniesta, Pique – who have all come through this system at La Masia, where they were trained to receive the ball, and look for the man in space before passing it. If there is no obvious pass, at least keep the ball. And that is what they do. And then once it is released, they offer themselves for a pass and look for space.
It is a tactic which has been drilled into the nucleus of the Barcelona side from the age of 10. It is the same system which took Ajax in the 1970s to three successive European Cup triumphs, as well as Holland to the World Cup final. It is quite simply, the best system devised so far in football history. Mourinho’s may also be good, but it is inferior. His players have been playing under his tactical system for less than a year. Even with the best players on earth, and Madrid have more than their fair share of those, this system is still inferior to that of Barcelona’s.
Mourinho is up against 15 years of practise, training and proven success. This Barcelona side are so in tune to their philosophy that it is practically impossible to win the ball from them. Just a month ago, they made Arsenal look like a long-ball team. And what can you do when you don’t have the ball, can’t win it back and have to stop players of the calibre of Lionel Messi, Iniesta, Xavi and David Villa? Players who can pick apart the tightest of defences? They simply pass the ball between them and keep moving until they create a gap in the opposition defence, the tightest of spaces to manipulate, and into which they will more often than not play a pass almost exactly into the right place.
It is a system better than any level of organisation Mourinho can manage in the short spells he is the manager of his clubs. And he of course used to work for Barcelona, and so knows the system all too well. His outburst on Wednesday was born of the realisation that not even he has a tactic which can beat Barcelona. He railed against the loss of Pepé because his hopes were based on his ability to break up Barcelona’s intricate passing. Yet Barcelona were without Iniesta. But so honed are Barcelona that they can bring in a player who slots in seamlessly to their system, practised every day for a decade and a half. Mourinho relies on individuals to make his system work. Guardiola relies on a system to make his players work. Such a battle will almost always be won by the latter.
If Mourinho is the ‘enemy of football,’ to paraphrase a UEFA official, then Barcelona are its saviour. The Portuguese may have to accept that he has come up against an opponent even more ‘special’ than he is.
