Mourinho’s plan comes to fruition as Real Madrid relaunch with clásico declaration | La Liga

J.Osé Mourinho had already done the becausee?printing and no-show at the press conference in less than 100 days. Now he also slipped his knee, and in the perfect place: where it all began and where it can all start again. When Kylian Mbappé scored the first of the match classic On Sunday evening, the Real Madrid coach barely moved, sitting in the shadows of the bench, but when the striker got the second goal to win with time running out, it was different. Mourinho leapt into the light, threw himself into the grass, the knees of a 63-year-old man’s pants muddy like a schoolboy’s, stuck out his tongue and raised his fists.

He loves it when a plan comes to fruition. To his right, the bench emptied, the substitutes joining the players in sprinting towards the southwest corner. As they jumped, dodging bottles thrown at them from the bottom, way up in the far corner and stuck in a glass box like a bunch of David Blaines, the small group of Madrid fans who had come were going crazy. In the main stand, a thousand telephones were set up. And 600km to the west, back in Boadilla, Thibaut Courtois watched his teammates from the couch at home, presumably wrapped in a blanket and cradling a cup of Lemsip. The morning of the biggest game ever, he woke up with the flu, forced to miss the game.

“We have the best goalkeeper in the world, but none of us cried because Thibaut couldn’t play,” Mourinho said. Many might have wanted it, all the more reason to be afraid. But the coach called Andriy Lunin, the sub-guard so serious he bought a roll of artificial turf and spent the pandemic diving in the living room of his apartment, and told him this was his time: “You train to play, not to sit on the bench, so keep going.” As for the others, the manager told them that nothing changes: the plan remains in place. As they returned to the locker room, “Fuck, come in!” echoing in the corridor of the Camp Nou, it had proven it.

Thirteen years later, Mourinho returned to Barcelona for a classic and he had guided Madrid to a 2-1 victory. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, or maybe it was. Barcelona, ​​the team that had won nine times in a row, scoring 4.3 goals per game, had been beaten by Madrid, the team that had already lost twice and, truth be told, wasn’t very good for the most part. The night it all could have ended, the title race over when it wasn’t even November, was instead the night it finally began. “If you leave nine points behind, it’s very heavy psychologically; if it’s six, it’s more balanced; if it’s three, it’s different,” Mourinho said.

It was different, just like the current season. Count the classics All those years ago, Mourinho had gone his sixth consecutive meeting with Barcelona unbeaten, and there had been no parked buses, and not many kicks. They didn’t just hang on desperately, although there was a moment when Dean Huijsen stopped a shot with his face. They also didn’t wait a moment, resist and then steal, although João Cancelo insisted: “It’s Madrid, they don’t have many chances but they score them.” The final shot count read 18-10 for Barcelona, ​​and possession was 62% for Barcelona.

“The way we won is important: you can win by luck or by defending a lot. But we won calmly and rightly. We did it by being organized, focused and having the courage to come out of the score,” Mourinho said. And if that might have pushed things a bit – and, let’s face it, the analyzes might have been different if Lunin hadn’t made a stunning save from Gerard Martín or if Lamine Yamal’s second-half shot hadn’t disappeared just behind the post – he was right.

Barcelona were not at their best. They had been rushed and imprecise, with Rodri telling his teammates to lower their “pulse” at the end of the second half. Lamine Yamal missed an extraordinary opportunity just before the break. And when they tightened the screws in the second half, they couldn’t break the wall. Xavi Espart was sent off, yet another back injury and the inability to recruit a central defender back in the spotlight. Yet it was still a faster, more aggressive and tighter Madrid than expected. When asked to define it, Lunin opted for “discipline and attitude.” And while it’s partly a matter of opportunity, the least you can ask for is more than you sometimes get.

Besides, it was also more than that. More than Marc Cucurella who put himself in the shoes of Lamine Yamal, even if he certainly succeeded. They looked for space beyond Barcelona’s full-backs: superb on his first classic19 years old, Yan Diomandé – the left winger – got more touches than any Madrid player and also protected his full-back. But it was also much more than that. More than the magnificent winning goal, a flash of inspiration with Jude Bellingham who attacks Nureyev, the ball fluttering between his feet and the legs of Gabriel Jesus, pirouetted to free Eduardo Camavinga. It was a team with an idea and a victory that justified its manager, a kind of resurrection.

Before the match, Rodri said one of Madrid’s tricks was to convince you he wasn’t very good, but he insisted he wouldn’t fall into that trap. Yet he particularly resented this plan. Pedri too. Bellingham took care of Rodri, Bernardo Silva of Pedri. Also in a hurry and tired, according to Hansi Flick, neither of them really took control. The inclusion of Arda Guler and Silva – the surprise in the middle, who was starting his first league game in six weeks – underlined Madrid’s intention to keep the ball when they could. They actually had a midfielder, which was new. From the back, they tried to build, to attract Barcelona. And if a time came where they had to wait, to put bodies before the ball, well, they would do that too. Six times Barcelona’s shots were blocked. At least two more times, shots were fired from their toes. On the other side, Madrid attacked with an intention and incision that probably caused the clearest chances: xG showed 1.19 compared to 1.94.

The victory puts Madrid three points behind Barcelona and, according to Federico Valverde, “will give us a boost”. It took 10 weeks but the game is launched. Hay Leagueas they like to say. There is a league. There is Madrid too. Something changed, starting with Rome, where a terrible 70 minutes gave way to a pretty good 20 minutes, another inexplicable comeback actually also having an explanation. The changes were impossible to ignore. Valverde and Aurélien Tchouaméni no longer team up in midfield, with Valverde moving to right-back. Guler plays. Diomandé plays. And yes, Vinícius Júnior not playing. “I’m not stubborn, I can change,” Mourinho said. Madrid have won five in a row; something was seen that night, very far away. They have won every game since Vinícius’ suspension, easy and perhaps even cruel, so that may be said. And ever since Mourinho grew a beard, if you believe in that sort of thing.

Before the clásicoMourinho had said it was not fair to compare his team, a team under construction and far from the finished product, to Barcelona. He insisted he was still getting to know his players; he hadn’t been there long, after all. After the clasicohe admitted: “We have improved, we can’t hide it.” The idea changed, as if it were a revelation: “I learned something about midfield; I learned that a mixture is better, that it is better to have a combination of qualities than two players with similar characteristics.” In short, Tchouaméni and Valverde don’t work. There has to be football somewhere, and that’s how a change began. Sunday came as a kind of confirmation, of hope, of the emergence of an identity.

“The best Madrid was born at the Camp Nou,” headlined El País. “Madrid is here now,” the AS cover said. “I won’t let them have their heads on the moon; if we win this and we don’t win at the Sardinero, it won’t mean much,” Mourinho said, but it was a start, not just an end in itself. At full time, Mourinho walked onto the pitch and shook Lunin’s hand as all the players embraced. In the north-eastern part of the pitch, Madrid fans stayed and sang. Back at home, Courtois watched. He had “a horrible night” Saturday, they said, but now he was feeling a little better. They all were.