The Special One: The Dark Side of Jose Mourinho

The old Ciudad Deportiva ‘Sport City’ on the Avenida Castellana, which finally closed in 2004, had been an accessible complex. Anyone, in exchange for a few pesetas, could get in to admire their idols as they trained. In Valdebebas the club forbade fans entering on weekdays. Even club members, whose contributions to the budget, mainly through ticketing, subscriptions or contributions, make up a third of Madrid’s income, were denied access.

The first-team training sessions were closed to the public before Mourinho arrived at the club. But for the new coach, living in a cloister was not enough. So the ban was extended to relatives and agents of the players. If the father of Sergio Canales, who was then 19, wanted to see his son train he had to apply for a permit with three days’ notice. The same thing happened to the agents of Casillas, Alonso and Arbeloa, among others. Before the end of 2010, Mourinho had extended the ban to Jorge Valdano, previously the highest sporting authority at the club. The doors of Valdebebas were now only unconditionally open to one person outside the club: Mendes.

There were now 300 players represented under the Gestifute banner. In some cases, the company merely represented them in the presence of third parties. In other cases, and under Portuguese law, the only European legislation that permits it, Gestifute acquired partial ownership of players through investment funds, and this enabled them to speculate in greater volume. When a Portuguese club sold a player whom it co-owned with Gestifute, the company charged its share of the transfer.

In the autumn of 2010 Mendes represented Mourinho and four players in Madrid’s first team. Pepe and Ronaldo, on the club’s payroll since 2007 and 2009 respectively, and Carvalho and Di María, signed on the recommendation of the new coach. Angel Di María was the player whom Mourinho had called for most fervently throughout the summer. Pérez found it difficult to accept the outlay of around €30 million, believing that the Argentinian left-winger, despite his success at the World Cup, did not have enough public appeal to justify his price. But Mourinho insisted that he was a good strategic signing.

The acquisition of Di María was more expensive because Benfica held no more than 80 per cent of the player’s rights. Since 2009, the Lisbon club had been ceding percentages of players’ rights to the Benfica Stars Fund, managed by Banco Espírito Santo. In return for greater liquidity, Benfica were required to transfer players only when their sale value ensured a profit for private investors. The sale of Di María marked the first profit in the history of the Benfica Stars Fund. Other equally profitable transactions would follow: the transfer of Fabio Coentrão to Real Madrid for €30 million in July 2011, David Luiz to Chelsea for €30 million in January 2011 and Javi García to Manchester City for €20 million in 2012. It is not known if Mendes participated in all these deals through the fund. He says that he did not and the Banco Espírito Santo guarantees investors’ anonymity. The fund manager, João Caino, provided no documents but said that the participants are a group of companies and rich individuals, but not football agents.

The summer of 2010 was full of high expectations. José Ángel Sánchez could at last count on a friend in the club, a true collaborator with whom he could shape the future from the same dressing room and with equal power. After two years of major investment in players, the board rubbed its hands at the prospect of infallible, charismatic certainty, unanimously agreeing that Mourinho was the missing piece. Inspired by stories that had actually been conceived in the board room, the press and fans dreamed of the wonderful adventures of a team full of stars and led by a secret-weapons scientist of a coach, permanently cloistered inside the perimeter of the impenetrable Valdebebas training complex.

Madrid’s pre-season sessions were held behind closed doors, with the exception of one. Mourinho organised every day’s work meticulously. He was busy with the most diverse of self-imposed tasks but, like many British managers, did not always personally take training. The players remember that on the evening he opened the doors to the press he had spent four days in his office, leaving the training-ground work to Karanka. This time, however, he appeared with renewed vigour on the pitch. Under the gaze of journalists and cameramen stationed on the balcony with their cameras, Mourinho was frenetic, urging a surprising level of movement for the middle of summer. Players laughed, saying that it seemed as if they were training to play the final of the Champions League the following day. This extrovert show aside, sessions were quiet affairs, the press only permitted for 15 minutes as the players left the dressing room and warmed up before beginning work.

One of the routines that most caught the attention of training-ground staff occurred when security guards locked the doors and ushered out the journalists. It happened a few times while it was hot. Mourinho took off his shirt, displaying his naked torso, and let Rui Faria and Karanka supervise the warm-up while he strolled off onto another pitch, walking alone, disappearing into the westerly distance before finally stopping to put his shirt down on the grass and lie or sit on it to sunbathe. Always the same. Methodical. Most players feigned indifference. The only one who dared to interrupt him was Dutchman Royston Drenthe.

‘Boss! What are you doing?’

‘I think my tan is fading,’ came the reply.

Those days at the end of August were the most serene of all Mourinho’s time at Madrid. He dreamed of the huge undertaking he was facing, a work of unknown dimensions that went far beyond his work as a mere coach. Not a press conference went by in which he did not use the word ‘construction’. From the moment he, along with Mendes, began negotiating his contract with Sánchez, he was moved by a determination to start something that would climax in administrative greatness. After winning his second Champions League he felt ready to do more than just coach. His role model was Sir Alex Ferguson. Mourinho did not originally conceive Chamartín as merely a stepping stone. A trusted ally of Mendes said that Mourinho’s plan was to install himself there for good: ‘He believed that at Madrid he would be the emperor. He thought he would retire in Madrid. He believed that so strongly that he got ahead of himself.’

Mourinho did not sign until he was completely certain that Madrid would give him total power to redesign the club as he saw fit. The coach thought this was only logical, since he was leaving Inter after winning a Champions League, and it was Madrid who needed him and not vice versa. He and Mendes established their requirements and the club agreed to the two fundamental conditions requested. First, he wanted control over what the press published, and second, absolute power in team affairs. Having complete discretion over who would be sold and who would be signed was as important as controlling the information that was produced about him and his team. Gestifute say Madrid promised Mourinho he would enjoy the support of 95 per cent of the media.

The project mapped out by Mourinho and Mendes as they negotiated his departure from Inter included the signing of Hugo Almeida, at the very latest in the winter transfer window. At six foot three and dominant in the air, Almeida was the classic target man. He was the perfect choice to complete the direct style of play – long balls bypassing midfield – that would provide an alternative in attack and a shortcut when more elaborate football was not possible. As a goalscorer he was not on the wanted list of any of the top clubs in Europe. Averaging just 13 goals a season in four years at Werder Bremen, he had a worse record than both Higuaín and Benzema. But Almeida had an added feature that made him particularly attractive: he was the most important number nine on Gestifute’s books. And there seemed no market for him. The best offers he had received so far were from Turkey.

There were people at Gestifute who, upon learning of Mourinho’s desire to push Madrid into signing Almeida, tried to persuade Mendes against it so as not to lose credibility with Pérez. They argued that the president might end up thinking that Mourinho was more interested in doing business than building a competitive team. In the opinion of these experts, the most prudent business plan would consist of three stages. First, signing excellent players. Second, winning major titles. Third, with the endorsement of the trophies, buying ordinary and perhaps even overrated players.

Mourinho broke with this plan of progressive action. He was so sure of his power that he tried to advance to third base in the first attack. According to close observers the coach had already taken enough risks with Di María and Carvalho. To sign Almeida, too, would constitute negligence. When the following year he showed off a minor trophy like the Copa del Rey to demand the signing of Fabio Coentrão he took a definitive wrong turn. To pay €30 million for Coentrão, a weaker left-back than Marcelo, would constitute a record fee for a substitute. It was not only the directors of Madrid who began to be suspicious. Those trusted by Mendes noted that from then on the press and clubs were put on guard. And not only in Spain.

The freedom of movement enjoyed by Mendes at Valdebebas contrasted with the prevailing restrictive climate at the training complex. The players ended up wondering if Mendes might not appear from behind the work-out machines one day and surprise them in the middle of a meeting. That never happened but, apart from in the gym and in the dressing room, the man went where he wanted to. After Mourinho’s office, his natural habitat was the cafeteria, where a free buffet was available every morning. He breakfasted and dined with the coaching staff, and went from table to table joking with the players, especially with Ronaldo, Di María and Pepe, with all of whom he shared a personal relationship. It was also where Mourinho mixed with everyone. He liked to tell jokes, to laugh. It was where he was at his most loquacious.

‘You cannot imagine the money this man has,’ he said, pointing Mendes out to a few players as they ate their breakfast one day. Most thought it strange but made an effort to be friendly. Casillas was unfazed. The captain would soon begin to tire of it all and be less than friendly.

Mendes and his entourage would often attend the last part of the training sessions, sometimes with foreign guests whom Mendes wanted to present to players. Having finished training the players would encounter him on their way back to the dressing room, waiting on the edge of the pitch. Players would stop to talk. Ronaldo would say hello, followed normally by Pepe, Di María, Carvalho and Marcelo. Each player, except for Marcelo, was under the administrative umbrella of the Portuguese agent and would regularly have things to share. The group exchanged pleasantries in front of the puzzled looks of the rest of the squad, who gradually became more familiar with what was going on. The Spanish contingent would also greet the agent. Almost everyone, in one way or another, sought to live with the situation as politely as possible – apart from Casillas. The goalkeeper ignored Mendes, pretending that he did not exist. At 29, the captain felt that he had fulfilled his quota of formal commitments. As he once said, winning the World Cup had helped release him: ‘I’ve earned the right to say “no”.’

Casillas believed Mendes’s activity at Valdebebas was invasive and discriminated against the majority of the players, whose agents, friends and family had first to pass through the filter system imposed by Mourinho under principles that were not really clear. The Spanish players and the older employees of the club all believed that the new order was tailored to those who had ties to Gestifute.

What the squad could testify to after just a few months of living together was that Mendes stood at the top of the food chain, the only one who paid homage to no one. The only person Mourinho was docile in front of was his agent. What the president of the club or the players thought did not bother Mourinho. He was at ease. He was not averse to displaying a bit of nonchalance. When he got behind the wheel of one of his cars – the Aston Martin, the Ferrari or the club Audi – he was prone to bravado. Especially if he thought someone was watching him. Revving the engine, putting his foot to the floor as he pulled away, burning tyres in a cloud of white smoke and the smell of burning rubber, it was all part of the spectacle for whoever was lucky enough to coincide with him in the parking area. Mourinho saw himself as an outstanding amateur rally driver.

It took two months for Mourinho’s spiritual well-being to start to evaporate. That was probably as long as it took him to realise that Madrid would not give him all the power that they had promised. On 16 September the first signs of this appeared when Gilberto Madaíl, president of the Portuguese Football Federation, travelled to Madrid to personally request that Mourinho take charge of Portugal in the qualifying rounds of the 2012 European Championships. The unusual thing was not the request itself. The truly exceptional thing was that Mourinho made it public before admitting in a press conference that if he was unable to work for his national team it was not for lack of desire but because the Madrid directors had refused to allow it.

‘Madrid has every right,’ he said, ‘to put an obstacle in my path, and if they do – however small it may be – I cannot go.’

The coach added that he saw no difficulty in reconciling the two jobs, because in the two weeks that FIFA had set aside for international matches there would be very few players left at Valdebebas for him to train.

‘If I go with Portugal I’ll be going with three Madrid players: Pepe, Ronaldo and Carvalho,’ he said. ‘And if I stay here I’ll be with three players: Pedro León, Granero and Mateos’.

This was a stunt to remind Pérez that he did not sign a contract just to train players but also to manage the club. If he was the manager, then fine. If he was just the coach, then why not go with Portugal when there was no one left at Valdebebas to coach. He told the president that he was delaying giving him the power that he had demanded as a condition of signing the contract. He wanted to reform Madrid from top to bottom and if they did not let him, then he would go elsewhere.

Contracts for Carvalho, Di María, Özil, Khedira, Canales and Pedro León for a total of €90 million did not satisfy Mourinho. First, because it would mean keeping Benzema rather than signing Hugo Almeida. Second, because he had not signed Canales or Pedro León, but had only approved what were sporting director Jorge Valdano’s proposals, seeing them as obstacles to his project rather than reinforcements. Third, because it bothered him that Valdano continued to act as the club’s presidential advisor and spokesman. Mourinho wanted to appoint a spokesman he trusted. He also wanted to move Pepe and Di María up the salary scale above Ramos and Alonso. But Pérez was not committed to any of this. He was shrewd enough to suggest he would support Mourinho completely, while at the same time not doing anything to translate that support into anything concrete. He played for time, waiting to test the effectiveness of the methods proposed by the coach. He also played with two hands – in front of Mourinho he showed his condescending, entrepreneurial side. But later his influence would be a delaying and conservative one.

Along with Granero and Alonso, the Murcian Pedro León Sánchez belonged to a long line of Spanish midfielders who had emerged over the previous decade. He was one of those players whose style of play had provided Spain with a distinctive footballing identity. In the pre-season with Madrid he had given the impression of being physically ready to fulfil the potential that scouts from Chelsea, Barça and Milan had all glimpsed in him. His development at Getafe in the 2009–10 season – that combination of vision, creative audacity and a clean strike of the ball – had placed him among the top players in the league with nine assists. Only Alves (Barcelona) with 11 and Navas (Sevilla) with 10 were ahead of him, and he was level with Valero (Villarreal), and Xavi and Messi (Barcelona). Pedro León had succeeded in Getafe, a small team on the outskirts of Madrid, without the attacking players around him that he would have had at Barcelona, Sevilla and Villarreal. When Madrid paid €10 million for him no one seemed to think it was a bad deal.

His way of dominating the ball, the co-ordination of body and object, his subtle touches – these were all a throwback to another era, to a time when children had no TV, no consoles, no McDonald’s, no mobile phones or Dolce & Gabbana – only footballs. For José Luis Mendilíbar, his coach at Valladolid, the lad seemed to have stepped out of a time machine.

Mendilíbar, born in Vizcaya in 1961, gets excited just thinking about it. ‘There are no players like Pedro León anymore,’ he says. ‘He’s from the last century. He’s like a child. Throw him a ball on the street and he’ll start to play with it. I had to practically call him in from training sessions.’

Pedro León was always a boy with slightly old-fashioned habits. Born in Mula, an inland town in Murcia, he had the reserved nature typical of highland people, and had had a strict upbringing from his father, a retired policeman permanently disabled after being the victim of a terrorist attack, possibly by ETA. There was a spartan regime in the house and sacrifice, physical courage and discretion were valued above all other qualities.

Pedro León detested jokes and abhorred electronic games. He paid very little attention to social life, to music, to bars or admirers, and settled down with his first girlfriend. Vicente del Bosque once said of Pedro Munitis: ‘Football is his vice.’ Football was also Pedro León’s vice, and he left evidence of his weakness wherever he went. When he played for Levante in the 2007–08 season, he trained with his team-mates in the mornings in Buñol and then travelled 200 miles to Mula to play indoor football with his friends.

The summer he signed for Madrid, after a somewhat inactive holiday period, he enrolled in a seven-a-side football championship despite running the risk of injury. It was one of those tournaments that lasts for 24 hours without interruption, like ‘The 24 hours of Caravaca’. A marathon. It began on a Saturday and ended on Sunday after some early-hours-of-the-morning play-offs. The Madrid scouts whose job it is to check out the private lives of potential signings could not have been clearer in their reports. Valdano shrugged his shoulders: ‘The boy is clean-living to the point of being naive.’

Pedro León possessed the spirit of an amateur but that contrasted with Mourinho’s rather industrial notion of football, where players were aseptic pieces on an assembly line to be put together as the coach saw fit. Pedro León would never put in an indifferent spell at training, despite the fact that his coach hardly ever used him for competitive matches. It was a new experience for the youth. Never before had he had such a peripheral role in a team and it burned him up inside. He was going to Valdebebas every morning like someone on his way into battle. Teeth clenched, he worked as if each session were his last chance to win his place in the team. His aim was to occupy the right wing, where the most expensive signing of the summer – the first transfer that turned a profit for Benfica Stars Fund – played: Angel di María.

That night at the Ciutat de Valencía – when Mourinho accused Pedro León of displaying a vain and selfish attitude in front of his team-mates – was only his second game of the season. In five rounds of league matches and one round of Champions League fixtures he had only played 60 minutes; Di María had already played 340. The press conference in Auxerre was the most explicit public attack that Mourinho had launched against one of his own players. It is probable that after hearing what he said Mourinho realised he needed to make what had happened seem like nothing special. Who better for the job than Pedro León himself?

Mourinho spoke to him two weeks after returning from Auxerre, asking him to give a press conference that he himself would supervise. The procedure was the same as he used when Karanka spoke in public and more often than not when one of his players held a formal press conference: he would meet the player in question, he would formulate the questions that he imagined reporters would ask and suggest answers, as if in a face-to-face interview. What Mourinho asked Pedro León can be worked out from the repetitive answers the player gave in the press room.

‘I spoke with the coach after the game against Levante and I knew I’d done some things wrong,’ he said, without specifying exactly what his mistakes had been. ‘There’s been no punishment. I’d even say I feel protected by my coach. He’s the boss. I know that when the boss gets along well with someone he usually tell them these things. At no time have I felt bad or offended. If I have to ask anyone for advice, then, with the friendly relationship I have with my coach, I ask him.

‘I get along with him very well. I’ve a very good relationship. I know that everything he does is for the good of the group and for me. And the team’s good …’

This was positive propaganda that favoured the powers that be. But still, Mourinho did not like some of the words used by the player. In time, the coach would forbid Madrid players from giving press conferences – something that they had hitherto done on an almost daily basis.

His public appearance did little to enhance Pedro León’s career prospects at Madrid, and he played less and less. On 3 October at the San Siro in the fourth round of the group stage of the Champions League, Milan led 2–1 when the coach brought him on with 10 minutes remaining. His contribution was explosive: he got the equalising goal in the last attack of the match. But there was no reward. This goal was the last thing Pedro León did on the pitch for a long while as he did not play a single minute in any of the following six league matches.

Murcia lawyer José Sánchez Bernal, one of the 16 men who sat alongside Pérez on the board, was quick to offer the official version of his fellow Murcian in the newspaper La Verdad de Murcia. ‘I have to clarify the fact that our coach has not put a cross against his name,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Pedro León will end up playing many games for Real Madrid and have lots of success.’

Sánchez Bernal’s vision offers up an idea of the type of information available to the board. The reality for Pedro León at Valdebebas was very different. His future in Madrid was unfeasible. Chelsea and Manchester City made contact with Valdano in December and January to inquire about the footballer, checking the possibility of a loan until the summer. Hearing this, Mourinho rejected the idea, saying he needed him. In the second half of the season, however, he used him even less.

For players, and for employees close to the first-team squad, the reasons for the relegation of Pedro León are the same ones that inspired the demotion of Kaká and Canales. Because of the way Mourinho lined up his team, the presence of these players would have been a serious threat to Di María’s place in the starting line-up. Since the Argentinian winger clearly could not compete with Ronaldo or Özil, it became clear that he had to play on the right wing. In order to keep Di María there, Mourinho had to edge out all serious competitors who performed well on that side of the pitch.

By Christmas 2010 Mourinho was fully aware that Pérez was withholding the power and the conditions from him that he had demanded to carry out his grand task. It was not enough for him to have converted Valdebebas, that once public exhibition of all things Madrid, into a fortress whose inhabitants increasingly believed that the interests of a privileged few were being served above all others. He needed much more power and something told him it would not be possible to progress in his mission without first causing a long conflict. The pacification of the club, which José Ángel Sánchez had spoken about, could not be achieved without violent transformation.

Chapter 4

Fight (#uf262fc09-2ee0-5f85-99b0-0ea07150a3f7)

‘In short, there is nothing mysterious, romantic or necessarily laudable about leadership. Indeed, some of the most effective leaders have been those who, merely through having more than their fair share of psychopathic traits, were able to release antisocial behaviour in others. Their secret is that by setting an example they release a way of acting that is normally inhibited. This gives pleasure to their followers, thus reinforcing their leadership.’

Norman Dixon, On the Psychology of Military Incompetence

José Mourinho skirted the technical area and, covering his mouth so no one could read his lips, turned to the Levante left-back and insulted him.

It was about 8.30 p.m. on 25 September 2010 and Madrid were playing their fifth league match of the season. The Levante left-back, Asier del Horno, had gone to the touchline to take a throw-in late in the first half. He held the ball in his hands when, from the visitors’ bench, Mourinho could be heard directing a tirade of abuse his way, referring to his private life.

Del Horno tried to ignore it but the coach hammered him throughout the whole match, making del Horno feel sorry primarily for the coaching staff and the substitutes. Just a few feet away, sitting on the bench, the players looked on, perplexed and embarrassed. They could not believe Mourinho was capable of so viciously insulting a footballer.