It’s been more than a year since Jose Mourinho officially resigned as Real Madrid’s head coach and echoes of his era are still ringing daily in every Madridista’s ear. MARCA opened up the Mourinho chapter once again after posting an interview with his former assistant manager Aitor Karanka. Here it goes:
Q. Do you think Mourinho divided Madrid?
A. No. What José did was try to do the best thing at any given time. Everyone talks, for example, about the thing with Iker [Casillas]. It wasn’t a decision that was taken overnight. We took our time and decided that it was the best thing for the team at that moment.
Q. Several players went from saying “Mourinho is the number 1” to calling for him to leave. Did you feel betrayed?
A.I’ve been a player and you often realise that you have a longer contract than the manager, that you’re going to stay, and you can change your mind. But there were also a lot less players than people might think. You can see it whenever Mourinho plays against a player who we had at Real. They talked about Özil, and when Özil played against him, he gave him his shirt. The majority of players speak well of José in interviews. They said it was almost as if we couldn’t go into the dressing room. Another of the many lies.
With those words, Real Madrid fans opened up the Iker Casillas/Diego Lopez argument, an argument which eventually lead to the question of whether Jose Mourinho actually did divide Real Madrid or not. Later in the day, MARCA posted a poll on their website asking their readers whether Mou divided Los Blancos or not. By 1 PM, more than 75% of the readers voted SI. If it were up to me, I would’ve closed the poll and simply put SI as the result. How Mourinho handled the Casillas situation caused quite a stir in Real Madrid’s fan base and actually pleased a certain group of people whom I have already discussed in a previous article. The problem with the Mourinho/Casillas issue is that it goes way beyond the matter of Mourinho’s player preference or not. There were rumors flying around [which made perfect sense to me] that Jose benched Casillas after contacting Barcelona captains and arrange a meeting with both teams’ Spanish players to bring peace to the Spanish national team after a series of incidents between them during El Clasicos in the Mourinho era. Mourinho is known to be a man of a complex personality, a person who cares only about what he thinks and believes, disregarding whatever history and culture a certain club has. How he dealt with the Casillas issue was one of the main reasons that caused several Madridistas to distance themselves from the Mourinho regime.
Jose even had problems with other players and “recruited” a few players to his side. Mourinho had issues with Ozil, Ramos, Casillas, Cristiano and who knows who else whereas he was known to have Diego Lopez and Alvaro Arbeloa by his side at all times no matter what he says or does. How would you expect a fan base to be united if their own players and coach have problems of their own within themselves. We all know what a great tactical mind Mourinho is but his tactics off the pitch weren’t his specialty.
The division in our fan base is insane. People now write “Anti-Mou” or “Mourinhista” on their Twitter bios, eventually clarifying their point of view on the whole Iker/Lopez situation. But this is way beyond Iker and Diego, this has got to do with the unity of our fan base, the people whom our players depend on in every single game they play.
Twitter has been known as the podium for every fan to speak up his mind and it’s actually going crazier by the minute. Last time I recall, us Madridistas were supposed to be defending our own team no matter what player comes in or goes out, supposed to stand behind the team which we all love, facing our oppositions with all of our hearts, not fighting each other. Lately all I’ve been seeing from several Madridistas is how Casillas should be sold or what a douche Mourinho is. I couldn’t care less.
Yes, I disapproved the Mourinho’s tactics on and off the pitch but never have I said a bad word about him, respect is NECESSARY when you talk of any member of the Madridista family no matter who he/she is.
Real madrid insider 