So now is the time for Spurs to

comment by it'sonlyagame (U6426)
posted 4 hours, 13 minutes ago
Sandy, Don, I get you, and I realise how easy it is to talk about this as a Madrid fan, but Mourinho was just too much for me to stomach. In his time here, he lashed out at his own players, the media, the refs, the Spanish FA, the national team, the league, UEFA, rival managers and, worst of all, life-long Madrid fans and the club itself. And the football at times, especially against Barcelona, was downright embarrassing. He just wasn't worth the baggage.

Zidane has had us playing some horribly dreary football this season en route to the Liga title, but it's much easier to forgive because the man is all about the club. He doesn't put you through the mill of having to listen to all the moaning, whinging, complaining and excuses, and the bitter attacks on all and sundry in the process.

I know and completely understand the reasons for Poch's dismissal, and it's easy to say from the outside, but I personally would've given him a season and a summer window to rebuild the mess. As a fan, I reckon I'd have felt more hurt about his umming and ahhing about his staying on or not before the CL final than the drop-off in results themselves. In the end, he did show loyalty though, and I think that despite repeatedly failing at the final hurdle, he too deserved a bit more loyalty from the club.
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Top posts on this thread mate

I lived in Madrid for a while during the Mourinho years and I remember how reviled he was even when winning titles - I would support Barca in bars during the Clasico and people wouldn't even blame me Got family who are United fans too so I watched it all unfold during Mourinho's stint there too. It's impossible to miss the common denominator. I'll happily admit I've been set against Mourinho from the moment I saw his name crop up as Pochettino's successor and it'll take something pretty major (not to mention a pretty remarkable departure from the norm over the past decade) for him to change my mind.

comment by sandy (U20567)
posted 2 hours, 11 minutes ago
comment by Spurtle (U1608)
posted 27 minutes ago
comment by sandy (U20567)
posted 46 minutes ago
comment by it'sonlyagame (U6426)
posted 44 minutes ago
Sandy, Don, I get you, and I realise how easy it is to talk about this as a Madrid fan, but Mourinho was just too much for me to stomach. In his time here, he lashed out at his own players, the media, the refs, the Spanish FA, the national team, the league, UEFA, rival managers and, worst of all, life-long Madrid fans and the club itself. And the football at times, especially against Barcelona, was downright embarrassing. He just wasn't worth the baggage.

Zidane has had us playing some horribly dreary football this season en route to the Liga title, but it's much easier to forgive because the man is all about the club. He doesn't put you through the mill of having to listen to all the moaning, whinging, complaining and excuses, and the bitter attacks on all and sundry in the process.

I know and completely understand the reasons for Poch's dismissal, and it's easy to say from the outside, but I personally would've given him a season and a summer window to rebuild the mess. As a fan, I reckon I'd have felt more hurt about his umming and ahhing about his staying on or not before the CL final than the drop-off in results themselves. In the end, he did show loyalty though, and I think that despite repeatedly failing at the final hurdle, he too deserved a bit more loyalty from the club.
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Sorry mate, Pochettino had five years to build Spurs up. Plenty of time. He was given more time than any other manager at a CL club. Most last barely two seasons if they do not deliver trophies. And he did oversee Spurs record signing, who has turned out to be a complete dud. So not true to say he wasn`t given money, he was given plenty, just didn`t spend it very wisely.
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The point is he made us into a CL club when we had no right to be one with our budget and squad depth compared to the other teams. He inherited some good players but also some misfits, and many improved massively under him such as Kane, Son, Walker, Rose, Dembele, Vertonghen. Also had to cope with the moving of a new stadium.

You really do underrate the job Poch did so much it's silly.
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Not really mate, but I do wish supporters would stop banging on about him like he was the best manager ever. Any half decent manager with the players he had at his disposal would in my opinion put at least one trophy in the cabinet.
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Pochettino made most of those players and took their game to the next level, he got them to over achieve and the team exceeded the sum of its parts. Before Poch arrived, those same players were either under achieving or at a average level.

Agree with Amanda, great posts it'sonlyagame.

I'd like to see Mourinho bring trophies, but not by boring the opposition (and therefore the fans) to death.

Hi Sandy. I understand you wanting to put faith in the manager, but he's a nasty piece of work, a grade A cant who will turn on the club, players and/or fans the moment he needs to save face. He doesn't dig out his players in public for the good of the team. He never has the good of the team at heart. It's only ever about him. He's repeated this every time he's run into trouble, regardless of the club. And he's a complete hypocrite too. Some fans back him to the hilt so strongly that they end up having to defend his every word. It's as if they become infected with Mourinhovirus and turn into zombies. In extreme cases, they even follow him round from club to club. You don't want to be one of those, do you?
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Love that Mourinhovirus analogy so much. It's so damn true

I'd love to get a Madrid fan prospective on this, when exactly did you realize he wasn't the man Chelsea/Inter fans promised he was? Was it immediate or a gradual thing? Cos with a clear mind now seven years later it was obvious even from his first press conference he'd changed! He looked worn out, fed up, and only sprung to life when someone asked him about "failing" at Madrid.

comment by Devil D.A. (U6522)
posted 1 hour, 5 minutes ago

Love that Mourinhovirus analogy so much. It's so damn true

I'd love to get a Madrid fan prospective on this, when exactly did you realize he wasn't the man Chelsea/Inter fans promised he was? Was it immediate or a gradual thing? Cos with a clear mind now seven years later it was obvious even from his first press conference he'd changed! He looked worn out, fed up, and only sprung to life when someone asked him about "failing" at Madrid.
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There's no exact answer to that.

In my case, I was highly skeptical from the moment he was appointed, but to be fair, Madrid fans are still divided on Mourinho to this day, so mine's just one opinion. There's no shortage of zombies who still worship him - though they're mostly the fascist ultras who felt twice rewarded by his all-out war of aggression on Barcelona, who they view as not just a sporting rival but a political enemy.

Bear in mind he was very well known before he arrived, and not only from the perspective of the fans of his former clubs. My gut feeling was that he'd never make a good fit, both for his style of football and for his ways, though I did harbour a faint hope that he'd think we were something different to any other club and rise to the challenge.

But even though I was skeptical from very early on, I took the 5-0 drubbing at the Camp Nou relatively well, because we actually had a go. His antics were appalling and he'd largely lost me by the time we faced them again in the home leg of our CL semi against Barcelona. The embarrassing set up in that game, which I happened to watch in a bar in Porto of all places, I think was my own personal point of no return.

OK. Thanks for replying

Although I've overcome my own case of Mourinhovirus (really good analogy lol) for a few years now he's still a fascinating point of discussion from so many angles & probably most interesting of all is the fundamental contradiction of him being a winner on paper but an underdog at heart - hence the Real Madrid & Man United fan takes on him are most interesting of all because you're both clubs that culturally clash with this way of thinking, there by I don't think it's a coincidence that from the outside he's appeared most miserable towards the end of both those posts.

A common Chelsea fans prospective is that he walked in & out of Madrid a changed man, we faced him in the CL vs. Inter & he was the Mourinho we know, up for the fight as a rival (said he wanted to "kill us" in the build up) but the tone of it was the guy we knew & loved, we were his enemy for 180 minutes but that's it - was purely business. At Madrid he seemed to make everything personal & that's slowly developed into a chip on his shoulder he's carried with him ever since. Would be curious to pin point exactly when that started.

I agree that he's a fascinating character. Tbh, I could've written a much longer reply to your question but thought I'd only bore you.

The underdog theory is interesting. In our case, it was not so much playing the underdog, but playing the victim. Barcelona under Guardiola were amazing. Not only had they won it all, but had done it in style. They'd established an impossibly high bar, and we'd pulled out all the stops to rise to the challenge. We assembled the most expensive squad in the history of football, probably by a long way.

It was a question of pride. But we needed something we could feel proud of. When a club is steeped in trophies, very often winning isn't enough.

What should've been a sporting rivalry on the pitch, with Madrid striving to match Barcelona not just in results but in terms of flair, Mourinho transformed into an all-out-war from every possible quarter. It was win at all costs. Every press conference had Barcelona as a target. His hounding of Guardiola was relentless, and in stark contrast with Guardiola's coolness and focus. Every draw brought an outburst of complaints and conspiracy theories. He would stop at nothing. Trying to make the players, and many of the fans, choose between the club and the Spanish national team was a huge mistake. They could never be made incompatible.

But if total war was the battleground he himself set, then the victory needed to be absolute and incontestable. It required not just domestic but European domination.

Even then, he had lost the hearts of many madridistas, who thought pride couldn't be restored with such underground tactics while hiding from Barcelona on the pitch.

He created an impossible situation for himself. The only way he could've walked away with his head held high was by winning the Champions League. Three semifinals were seen as three failures. Losing the squad in the third season and gifting the league title back to Barcelona meant that in many people's view, he had failed on all fronts. As much as it was painted as a mutual agreement, and with Perez it was, to the majority of fans he'd had to depart with his tail between his legs.

That I think was a totally new experience for him, and one he was ultimately unprepared for.

Yeah that doesn't surprise me. I recently re-watched his first press conference back in 2013 & he really did look tired, like he'd been through a war, but he never seemed to get out of that mindset I assumed he pushed himself to why'll at Real (tbf he does appear a bit calmer at Spurs).

The victim mentality is the crux of it. Other fans might claim he was always like that but at Chelsea we felt the difference, between 04-07 he would complain about trivial things for the tinniest of psychological advantages, but it was done in a strategic manner that put himself and the club on the offensive (Alex Ferguson like). When he came back all those same things became defensive justifications, what was bias from certain targeted individuals was suddenly a full blown conspiracy against Chelsea. In addition his demeanor wasn't dissimilar to what we saw with Villas-Boas, everyone's knives were out for him in his own mind & it got to the point where (a) he self destructed in 15/16 & (b) he wound up proving himself right because of that attitude (classic confirmation bias you'd think would be beneath someone of his intelligence).

To put it succinctly, what was once "us against the enemy" became "Mourinho against everyone".

He's football's tortured artist. Fascinating & frustrating in equal measure to the audience of his composition

He's football's tortured artist. Fascinating & frustrating in equal measure to the audience of his composition
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Ever seen David Squires' characterisation of him as a moody teenage emo (Emou) in his Guardian comic strip? It's brilliant.

No I haven't, I'll check it out

I once heard an analogy of him being a punky guy leading a team of corporate suits as Real/United's manager, it fit quite nicely IMO.