Appreciating José Mourinho’s unforgettable Real Madrid legacy

José Mourinho joined Real Madrid in 2010 after accomplishing one of the most incredible managerial feats in the modern era. He won the treble with Inter Milan, making them the only Serie A club to have accomplished this feat. He did this by knocking out his former club Chelsea in the Round of 16, Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona in the semifinals, and another dynasty-level side in Bayern München in the Final.

It was an incredible run by Mourinho, who had previously won the Champions League with FC Porto in an even more unprecedented feat. He then went on to dominate the Premier League with Chelsea, putting the London club on the map as one of the elite clubs in European football.

After reaching the pinnacle with Inter, Mourinho joined Real Madrid at an important time for the club. Despite signing Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, and Kaká in the same transfer window, Los Blancos were at a crossroads. They were embarrassed by Alcorcón in the Copa del Rey. They were knocked out of the Champions League Round of 16 for the sixth straight season – a horrific run for a club with the most UCL titles in history. And to top it all off, despite earning a club record 96 points in LaLiga, Real still played second fiddle to the dominant Barcelona for a second straight season.

Real Madrid needed José Mourinho

Real Madrid needed a change. With all due respect to Manuel Pellegrini, he didn’t have the quality or ambition in the manager’s chair that Los Merengues needed. They had to hire someone with experience succeeding at the highest level in football. They needed someone capable of winning the Champions League AND dominating a league. They needed someone who could go toe-to-toe with Guardiola as the best manager in the world.

They needed José Mourinho.

There was nobody else for the job. Think about it. Real needed someone who could get ugly with Barcelona. Mourinho was the prefect counterweight. Not only did he beat Barcelona in the Champions League semifinals with an underdog, counterattacking style and the perfect defensive gamplan, but he also had his own personal point to prove. Barcelona had picked Guardiola over him, bypassing the former Blaugrana translator in order to build an era in Guardiola’s vision – in line with the club’s Cruyffist principles.

It worked out for Barcelona, no doubt. But in a way, it ended up working out for their greatest rivals, too.

Mourinho ushered a new era for Madrid

Because Mourinho helped transition Real Madrid from their lost years post-Galácticos, becoming a Galáctico of his own and ushering an era in which Real returned to being the most dominant club in the world.

Mourinho was only Real Madrid manager for three seasons. By the end, his tenure ended in disaster, with Mourinho more interested in a petty fight with club legend Iker Casillas, dividing the dressing room with his desperate antics. Los Blancos seemed broken by the time he left, with Mourinho even quipping that the 2012/13 season was the worst of his career (I am sure that is no longer the case, of course).

However, Mourinho’s legacy at Real Madrid is not defined by how things ended, but rather how things proceeded after his departure – and what he achieved in those three seasons between 2010 and 2013.

Yes, Mourinho was abrasive and unorthodox. He became just as famous for his press conference tirades about “UEFAlona” and the bloodbath Clásicos that were anything but beautiful.

The barbaric beauty of Mourinho

Yet just like his quote about how “beautiful” it is to see two players quarreling, what Mourinho brought to Real was beautiful. And I’m not solely talking about the free-flowing counterattacking football that produced some of the most breathtaking team goals many of us have ever seen in our lifetimes.

There was a barbaric beauty in how Mourinho approached press conferences and how he held nothing back. He wanted to bring a fire back to Real Madrid that seemed extinguished. With Barcelona dominating, he needed to turn his players into ruthless lions, bringing the ferocity that legends like Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos, and Pepe always had in them.

That he did. Real Madrid flipped a switch. Immediately in Mourinho’s first season, they went to the Champions League semifinals, finally getting over the embarrassing Round of 16 purgatory. They remained in second domestically with the same goals scored and actually a few fewer points than under Pellegrini, but you could already sense a change in the winds.

Cristiano becomes a machine

That Ronaldo guy? Yeah, he went from scoring 26 goals under Pellegrini to putting 40 past LaLiga goalkeepers in 2010/11 – and he even upped his assists from 7 to 9. Cristiano, as Real had hoped, was becoming a true counterbalance to Lionel Messi. A superstar beyond compare who could average well over a goal per game and affect the rest of the team positively in the attack.

Under Mourinho, Ronaldo went from being one of the world’s best players to being one of the best players of all time – a scoring machine like we had literally never seen before. That scoring machine became even better a year later. At 26, Cristiano produced one of the finest seasons of his career, scoring 46 goals with 12 assists. He was far from the only one to produce mind-blowing statistics for Los Blancos in 2011/12.

The Merengue club had two more 20-goal stars in elite strikers Gonzalo Higuaín and Karim Benzema. Mesut Özil and Ángel Di María were the best providers those three forwards could have ever asked for. Two very different players, the German and Argentinian were equally prolific, with Özil setting up 18 assists and Di María providing 14. As if that weren’t enough, both players combined to score 9 goals of their own.

The most exciting team in football

Real Madrid were the most exciting team to watch in European football. Yes, even over Barcelona, despite playing a counterattacking style that was purposefully in complete opposition to Barça’s Tiki-taka, possession-based aesthetic. More importantly, Real’s beautiful football was effective. For the first time in four years, Los Blancos conquered LaLiga, hitting the rare 100-point mark and setting a literal record with 121 goals. Yes, Mourinho’s Madrid averaged more than three goals per game that season. Who said Mourinho only played boring football?

That 2011/12 season will forever live in the hearts of Madridistas. Mourinho took down one of the most dominant teams we have ever seen in football history, finding the perfect formula to edge Barcelona’s Tiki-Taka. His press conference antics, bold talk, and conspiracy theories all paid off. Real Madrid avoided slipping into a potential banter era in light of Barça’s dominance, going from Round of 16 feeders to the most exciting team in Europe that season.

No, José Mourinho didn’t win the Champions League in Madrid. Yes, his time at the club ended in flames, as is often the case with such a polarizing manager who sometimes relies on the most Machiavelian of tactics to manage.

 He will always be in the Real Madrid DNA

Yet Mourinho was the crazy uncle Los Blancos needed. He was the one who brought a level out of the Madrid players that maybe they didn’t even know they had. The next generation of elite Madrid players who made the bedrock of the team that won La Décima and, later, the three-peat were molded by Mourinho.

Cristiano became a fire-breathing dragon scorching the earth at the feet of goalkeepers. Ramos turned into Paolo Maldini’s historic rival in quality and spirit. Karim Benzema, Marcelo, and Pepe all improved markedly under Mourinho. Would they have done so without him? Probably, given their quality and mentality. But Mourinho imparted something on them.

He left something embedded in the Real Madrid DNA, providing the code for the five Champions Leagues that were to follow within the 10 years after his departure. The first of which, of course, came under the more patient, light-hearted Carlo Ancelotti one year after Mourinho’s exit. But ask any Madridista, and they’ll tell you that La Décima is just as much part of Mourinho’s legacy at Real Madrid as his unforgettable 2011/12.

It is true what they say. Sometimes, the stars that burn the fastest and explode the most spectacularly were the ones that burned the brightest, leaving behind the pieces to build something even greater after the supernova.