The Special One: The Dark Side of Jose Mourinho (4 page)

Along with the sale of the land on the Avenida Castellana to build skyscrapers where the old training ground had stood – a real-estate operation that transformed Madrid’s horizons dramatically – Sánchez and Pérez’s formula helped the club make a great deal of money. In the financial year ending in 2005 Madrid became the highest-grossing club in the world. The sum of €276 million entered the Bernabéu coffers, €30 million more than that earned by Manchester United, until this point the world’s most financially powerful club. Negotiation of TV rights in 2006 concluded with an unequal distribution of funds, to the detriment of all first and second division clubs apart from Barcelona and Madrid, who were blessed with the biggest contracts in Europe.

Not even when the economic bubble burst did the club’s income stop growing. At the end of the 2011–12 season it exceeded €500 million, and Pérez was also able to show off a league title, his first as president since 2003. It was the first and last Spanish league won by Mourinho.

‘You are Peter, the rock on which I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against her. To you I give the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven; and what you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’

Matthew, 16:18–19

‘The foundations of this our city are as firm as the convictions of all who love Real Madrid. An institution that respects its past, learns from its present and is firmly committed to its future.’

Inscription on the foundation stone at Valdebebas

Football nights at the Ciutat de València stadium have a distinctive feel. The salty sea air, the smell of sunflower seeds from the stands, the penetrating aroma of liniment on the ceramic-tile floors of the dressing rooms, boots scattered on the ground, incandescent lamps giving off slightly less light in the visitors’ dressing room than in the home one, the kind of lamps you find in hospital rooms, lighting up the face of Pedro León as he gets changed, reasonably satisfied after the game on 25 September 2010.

The crowd had just applauded him off the pitch in recognition of the time he spent at Levante three seasons ago. He had been Madrid’s best player and had done what his coach had asked, or so he thought.

Mourinho had brought him on after 61 minutes in place of Di María in an attempt to break down Levante’s defence. He told him to hug the touchline, to open up the pitch, to take people on and try to get around the outside of the opposition’s defence; and if there was space to do so, to make diagonal runs inside, combining with Benzema and Higuaín. The substitute carried out his coach’s instructions although from the bench he was being stared at by a clearly annoyed Mourinho. Furious, he grabbed a bottle of water and threw it to the ground. Despite the fact that he had created a chance for himself and served up another simple opportunity for Benzema to score, the match ended 0–0.

Pedro León was preparing to go to the bus when Mourinho stopped him in the dressing room and, calling the attention of the other players, pointed the finger of blame at the hapless Spaniard.

‘I’ve heard you’re going around like a star, saying you have to be starting games and doing whatever the hell you like. Your friends in the press, that Santiago Segurola … they say you’re a star. But what you’ve got to learn is to train hard and to not go around saying you have to be a starter. You’re going to be left out of the squad for several games. On Monday you won’t be going to Auxerre …’

‘I didn’t say that,’ the accused responded, stunned. ‘Tell me. Who have I told that I should be starting? We should talk in private. Please, boss, let’s talk in private …’

Mourinho sneered before turning around. The dressing room was electrified. The players did not understand what had happened to suddenly make the coach ruthlessly belittle someone who seemed so vulnerable. A 23-year-old newcomer to the team. A talented footballer who the group saw as a solution to the creative problems the team sometimes faced in away games. A player who had just shown against Levante that he was up to the task had been accused by the manager of being a kind of traitor, based on some idle gossip that it seemed only Mourinho had heard.

On Monday 27 September Madrid travelled to the French city of Auxerre to play their second group game in the Champions League. The absence of Pedro León caught the attention of both directors and journalists. That evening, during the official press conference, someone asked Mourinho the technical reasons behind his decision not to call up one of the players who had most impressed in the previous match. The question was either to be evaded or invited a football-based refection, but the answer Mourinho gave suggested the most powerful man at the club was almost out of control.

‘Speculation is your profession,’ he told reporters in a steely, inflexible tone that was then new but which, over time, would become almost routine. ‘In very pragmatic terms I could say that Pedro León has not been called up because the coach didn’t want to call him up. If President Florentino comes to ask me why Pedro León hasn’t been called up I have to answer him. But he’s not asked me. You’re talking about Pedro León as if he’s Zidane or Maradona. Pedro León is an excellent player but not so long ago he was playing for Getafe. He’s not been called up for one game and it feels like you’re talking about Zidane, Maradona or Di Stéfano.

‘You’re talking about Pedro León. You have to work to play. If you work as I want you to, then it will be easier to play. If not, it will be more difficult.’

Mourinho spoke with a mixture of cruelty and pleasure. The sadistic nature of the rant unsettled the squad. It was the first time that the players felt their manager represented a threat. Gradually, they began to follow his every public appearance: on TV, on the web, via Twitter, with iPhones or BlackBerries. They didn’t miss a single appearance because they understood that in the press room a different game was being played out, one that would have a major effect on them professionally; a game that could ennoble or degrade them, place them in the spotlight or bury them with indifference, conceal their misery or entirely disregard their merits – a ritual of four weekly appearances that they only had access to as spectators.

Real Madrid’s statute book establishes the board as the executive body of government responsible for directing the administration of the club. In practice, it works as a small, homogeneous parliament that meets regularly to discuss issues proposed by the president for approval. With the exception of the group closest to the president, whose position enables direct channels of inquiry, the confidential information handled by board members is usually limited to sources in the offices of the Bernabéu, offices well removed from the football team. Because directors are hand-picked by the president, Florentino Pérez, he has never met with overwhelming opposition and, except on rare occasions, the board unanimously agrees.

José Manuel Otero Ballasts, recognised by
Best Lawyers
magazine as the top intellectual property lawyer in Spain, is Professor of Law at the University of Alcalá de Henares, a former dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of León, author of detective novels and one of the 17 members of the board of directors. Asked in November 2010 about the character of José Mourinho, this most intellectual of Madrid’s directors turned to the Bible for reference:

‘When Jesus named the man who was to lead his Church he did not choose the even-tempered calm John, but Peter, the passionate, hot-blooded fisherman. Mourinho plans everything, everything, everything … his intelligence enables him to analyse the reality of a situation and project his own solutions. I had never before heard Casillas say that a coach had been “great” during half-time [the goalkeeper said this to the media after the victory in Alicante in October 2010]. They all adore him. He’s a communicator. He encloses the players verbally. He’s been successful in all the signings. It’s the first time I’ve seen this level of calm at the club.’

José Ángel Sánchez, the corporate director general, offered an equally complimentary account of Mourinho:

‘The coach,’ said Sánchez, ‘is like Kant. When Immanuel Kant went out for his walk in Königsberg everyone set their watches because he always did it on time. When the coach arrives in the morning at Valdebebas everyone knows that it’s 7.30 a.m. without looking at the clock.’

Sánchez felt that Madrid had its first coach who could be trusted to sign wisely. He cited the example of Khedira and Di María, whom the coach – showing what a clinical eye he had – asked for before the 2010 World Cup. He argued that his compendium of virtues made him exactly the solid figure that the club had needed for so many years. Mourinho, in the opinion of the chief executive, had ‘brought calm’ to Madrid.

The sports complex Valdebebas, known as Real Madrid City, is one of the most advanced centres of football technology in the world. It occupies an area of 1.2 million square metres, of which only a quarter has been developed, at a cost of some €98 million. The work of the architectural studio of Antonio Lamela, it has 12 playing fields, a stadium and, at its heart, a ‘T-shape’ of standardised units whose functionalist design of flat layers and clean lines projects a mysteriously moral message.

The main entrance, at the foot of the ‘T’, is at the lowest point of the facility. From there the complex unfolds, beginning with the dressing rooms of the youngest age categories (8- to 9-year-olds) and going through, in accordance with age group, the dressing rooms of each category, using the natural slope of the hill on the south side of the valley of Jarama. The architects, in collaboration with the then director of the academy, Alberto Giráldez, gave the main building an educational message for young people: the idea of an arduous climb from the dressing rooms of the youngest to those of the professionals. On top of this great parable of conquest – and indeed of the whole production – sits the first-team dressing room. And above the dressing room, with the best views of all, sits the coach’s office, defining its occupier as the highest possible authority. As Vicente del Bosque said of his predecessor as head of the academy, Luis Molowny: ‘He was a moral leader.’

Something in Mourinho’s arrival at Valdebebas surprised those who worked there. As well as Rui Faria, fitness coach, Silvino Louro, the goalkeeping coach, Aitor Karanka, the assistant coach, and José Morais, the analyst of the opposition, the Portuguese coach brought his agent and friend, Jorge Mendes. Gradually, the squad became convinced that Mendes worked in the building. Not so much as another one of the coaches but as the ultimate handyman.

Impeccably fitted out in a light woollen Italian suit, with a tie that never moved and a fashionable but unpretentious haircut, tanned even in the gloomiest of winter days, Jorge Paulo Agostinho Mendes was the first players’ agent who saw himself as a powerful businessman, often speaking as a self-styled agent of the ‘industry’ of football. Mourinho also used the term ‘industry’ in his speeches, seasoning his turns of phrase with expressions from the world of financial technocracy. For many other football agents, this was an artificial pose. ‘They think they’re executives at Standard & Poor’s,’ said one Madrid player’s FIFA agent.

Born in Lisbon in 1966, Mendes was raised in a working-class neighbourhood. His father worked in the oil company Galp and he won his first trophies selling straw hats on the beach in Costa Caparica. He played football at junior championship level and, determined to make it as a professional, migrated north to Viana do Castelo. He ran a video rental store, worked as a DJ and opened his own nightclub in Caminha, before discovering that he had a gift – the talent of first being able to gain the trust of players, and then being able to value them, generally above market prices. His first major transaction was the transfer of goalkeeper Nuno from Vitória de Gimarães to Deportivo de la Coruña in 1996. With the commission obtained from the deal, the foundation was laid for Gestifute to become the football industry’s most powerful agency, with subsidiaries such as Polaris Sports, dedicated to the management of image rights, marketing and advertising, and the promotional agency Gestifute Media.

Mourinho and Mendes shared an office straight away. The agent set himself up in the suburb of La Finca in Pozuelo. He went to Valdebebas, along with his players and his coach, almost every morning, accompanied by various assistants. When it was training time he would sit in Mourinho’s chair and look out of the window from his own private agency to follow the progress of the team from up on high.

The sight of Mendes in his dark-blue pinstripe suit sitting behind the glass, drinking coffee and looking at everything from behind the mask of his sunglasses, sparked the imagination of the players every morning as they warmed up. There was no shortage of jokes and laughter. Especially when jogging as a group, they had the feeling they were being watched from above.

‘There’s the lord and master of the club,’ said one. ‘There’s the boss.’

Mendes entertained his business partners in Mourinho’s office. There they organised their interviews with other agents. Juanma López, the former Atlético player, who was now a players’ agent, appeared one morning. It was a topic of conversation for the naturally curious players. ‘Mendes has his office here,’ they commented. Lass Diarra did not understand what all the fuss was about: ‘Who’s that?’ he said. The Frenchman had never seen López play.

The first stone of Valdebebas was laid on 12 May 2004. During the opening Pérez gave a visionary speech: he imagined a huge theme park that club members could access daily and in which they rubbed shoulders with the players.

‘The new “City of Real Madrid” has an inclusive character,’ he said. ‘It will be open to all who love the sport and want to enjoy all the possibilities for entertainment around it.’

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.