It was a very precarious performance by Jose Mourinho’s team on Wednesday at Santiago Bernabeu against Premier League leaders Manchester United. The much anticipated Champion League showdown did not go Mourinho’s way. An early Man Utd lead by Danny Welbeck sent shocking waves down the Portuguese spine after (of all people) his talisman Sergio Ramos failed to defend well the set-piece and British youngster took advantage with a 20th minute header. Although the CL top scorer Cristiano Ronaldo leveled the score ten minutes later, it did not stop Ferguson’s side to dominate the game with close-to-kill-offs. Robin van Persie almost made it a perfect night 18 minutes from time but was denied twice in matter of seconds - first by the crossbar and then Xabi Alonso’s goal line clearance.Hours before kick-off and throughout the day, social media was clogged with predictions and comments that indicated Man Utd was headed for a lifetime football lesson in the Spanish capital. My opinion was different though. I realised that a number of people who foresaw a Madrid edge in the encounter have not been following La Liga lately. Those, still have a Mourinho at Inter and Stamford at the back of their minds. Tactically, a Mourinho then is far different from the Mourinho today. His approach to the game in England and Italy was more of a “Mind Game”, “a Man Marking Game” and zonal marking kind of football. Season one at Bernabeu, it worked and a bit of season two. But being a shrewd coach that he is, he immediately realised that if he continued with this kind of football he was not going to fully win the hearts of Real’s fans and bosses—especially if he consistently failed the Bernabeu litmus test—beating the archrivals; Barcelona. With his prior approach, it was more deploying a midfield physical battle and packing it with physical attack-minded players. Dominating the midfield would win him many matches as he could literally stop any team from passing the ball and making effective movements off the ball. With Barca, this did not seem to work because the Catalans are perhaps the best in Europe, if not the world, at keeping possession of the ball. Yes, Madrid is a star-studied team but the players are not as connected (in their style of play) as Barca and Man Utd. What Fergie simply did was to urge the boys to work extra harder to close down spaces because he knows Madrid are not too solid as a team. Madrid will not put together at least 5 passes against a good side.But any of their strikers and midis; Benzema, Ronaldo, Higuain Ozil, Di Maria, or Callejon can finish you single-handedly. That cannot sustainable in a league or against a team that upholds total football. Mr. Mourinho is a Mr. Fix-it. He is makeshift manager. To me, what will make him be in the same league with likes of; Sir Alex Ferguson, Robert Manchini, Arsene Wenger is staying at Bernabeu long enough to test his resilience not only during the “up-times” but also “down-times”.I call it “Diminishing Marginal Mourinho Returns” because I see a high possibility of him going trophy-less this season. In La Liga, he is 16 points behind Barcelona. In Champion League, a draw at Bernabeu with Man Utd is worse. I don’t see magic happening at Old Trafford.Imagine, if they could not take advantage with the 81,454 fans behind them (seat capacity of Santigo Bernabeu is 85,454, Man Utd fans were only 4,000 on Wednesday and stadium was full to capacity), how then can they win at 75,000+ old Trafford. One journalist, in a match report wrote that:“There was a carnival atmosphere in the Spanish capital throughout the day as thousands of United fans soaked up the atmosphere with lager and tapas in the city’s squares, pubs and bars”. So you can figure out how OT will be like come the return leg on March 5.
