José Mourinho, who is back for his second stint at Real Madrid, denied that he harbors ill will toward LaLiga giant Barcelona, and insists that he will be more even-tempered this time around, saying: “I’m there to help everybody — not to criticize, not to speak, but to listen.”
The 63-year-old manager agreed to a two-year deal with Madrid last month, replacing his former player Álvaro Arbeloa, who took over in January after the firing of Xabi Alonso.
He returns to Real Madrid 13 years after leaving in 2013.
In his first go-round at Madrid between 2010 and 2013, he went head-to-head with Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona and won one LaLiga title, one Copa del Rey and one Supercopa. In the interim, he has managed Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, AS Roma, Fenerbahce and Benfica.
But no one in Spain can forget Mourinho’s beginnings as a coach at Barcelona and then his trajectory to his second Champions League title with Inter Milan in 2010, where his team famously beat Barcelona in the semifinal.
Mourinho denied that this build-up, along with the subsequent Real Madrid-Barcelona rivalry of his first stint with the club, set the stage for him to be anti-Barcelona.
“In the end, I don’t deny I love Real Madrid, and this is the reason I’m going back. But I don’t have bad feelings in relation to Barcelona at all,” Mourinho told Vanity Fair in his first interview since rejoining Madrid.
“I just enjoy playing against them because in football, you enjoy playing against the best. The best push you to be better than you are.
“But football is football, and I played so many times against Barcelona, starting at Chelsea before I went to Inter.
“Big Champions League matches with Chelsea, then big Champions League matches with Inter, and then I went to Real Madrid. I think it was destiny that put us against each other.”
That said, in his interview with Vanity Fair, Mourinho could not frame a discussion of his managerial career in that era without mentioning Barcelona.
“Barcelona is seen as the team that plays amazing football,” he said.
“Barcelona is seen as the team that scores a lot of goals. But this is a big contradiction. The team that scored [the most] goals in the history of Spanish football was my Real Madrid in 2011-12, with 121 goals and 100 points in one season. How defensive was that team?”
Mourinho recalled fondly that era of LaLiga and the rivalry of Cristiano Ronaldo vs. Lionel Messi. He lamented that Clásicos of this era do not have that appeal.
“People don’t look to the Clásicos the way people were looking at them. The world stopped. It was not just Madrid and Barcelona, or Spain. It was the world. People were waiting for those matches.”
“Of course, Cristiano and Messi, they were icons. They were the two best players in the world. Real Madrid is the best club in the world. Barcelona is one of the best clubs in the world after Real Madrid.”
Finally, Mourinho spoke in a measured and even-tempered manner about managing the club this time around.
Helping Mbappé be better “What I want to do is to help the players to be better, to help the team to be better, to help the club to be better. I’m there to help everybody — not to criticize, not to speak, but to listen.”
Asked about criticism of Madrid star Kylian Mbappé, Mourinho said: “The only thing I can say about is that he’s a phenomenal player, and I’m going to try to help him to be even better.”
