Real Madrid Losing Ground, Time for Jose Mourinho To Go?

While Real Madrid may be catching up to Barcelona on the football pitch following their 5-0 loss in the first Clasico of last season, the off-pitch battle is heavily in favour of the Catalans.

Last year Jose Mourinho was seen as one of the most, if not the most, desirable managers in world football. Today, there are questions about his integrity and how he handles the pressure of being upstaged by a younger, more inexperienced lion in Pep Guardiola.

Wherever he has gone, be it to winning Chelsea their first Premier League titles in 50 years, to Inter and finally upstaging rivals Milan in Europe, he has dragged with him a cloud of controversy that riles up those around him.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was accused of voyeurism when talking about the wealth Chelsea had, explaining how easy it was for Mourinho to pick up anyone in the transfer market with ease. Similarly, Mourinho struggled to get on with the Italian press, surprisingly stating he preferred their English counterparts.

The controversy has followed him to Spain where he has seemingly made a mockery of one of football’s greatest spectacles. Over sensationalising El Clasico for all the wrong reasons, Mourinho had called out an apparent conspiracy against his team following red cards in every one of their matches with the champions last season.

He further disgraced himself by slating Unicef, as if they had a part to play in the apparent favouritism towards Barca. 

His latest act of bravery saw him gouge the eye of Guardiola’s assistant, Tito Vilanova. Gerard Pique claims the Madrid manager is ruining Spanish football with his antics—a sentiment echoed by President Sandro Rosell, who said all of this would end very badly, with all the anger spilling out into the streets.

A further problem working against Mourinho is that he is not a manager for the long term. What Madrid President Florentino Perez has created in his second spell in the Spanish capital is a young team built for winning and sustaining long spells of dominance like Barcelona.

Unfortunately, Mourinho may not be the right choice to succeed those plans, as we have seen in the past he is very much a manager who moves on following a couple of seasons at any one club.

The likes of Mesut Ozil, Angel Di Maria and newly acquired Nuri Sahin need the consistency that comes with managers like Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger. Managers who look three or four years into the future and keep the interests of the club in mind are not characteristics of Mourhino’s managerial style. He looks to spend extravagantly in the transfer market and shows almost a total disregard for young players like Sergio Canales.

Yes, clubs will be guaranteed quick success under Mourinho, a man who can take a group full of talents, like those at Inter and Madrid, and turn them into a winning side who march to the beat of his drum. But this is a manager who enjoys the spotlight, and for all the wrong reasons. He was praised for truly being “The Special One” when he arrived in England; now he is grabbing headlines for cowardly acts of aggression in an already highly-fueled environment.