I either win or they lose

In his presentation as new Chelsea Manager, Jose ‘The Happy One’ Mourinho as he prefers to be called these days, spoke of his love for Chelsea and how he had come back to the one place where he was loved. What he did not tell us, is that this is the only place from which he has been fired and was unable to negotiate his next big contract before moving on. Where he gets the smugness to call himself the complete one is baffling at the least. Most important of all he was brought to real Madrid to break the dominance of Barcelona and secure ‘la Decima or the Tenth’ at Real Madrid. Let us dwell on this at the moment.Facts will bear us out that he failed at both despite having a team that cost in the region of Euros 400m. So why does he call himself the complete one? Without going into so much depth let us briefly break down the achievements of Mourinho while he was at Real Madrid in direct comparison as to why he was hired.The last time, we checked, Barcelona had won the league 2 times out of the 3 years that Mourinho was manager at Madrid, won the Champions League, won the European Super Cup, won the World Club Cup, won the Copa de la Rey and 2 Spanish Super cups. In comparison Madrid won La Liga once, Super Copa once and Copa De la Rey once. If this is what is called breaking the dominance of Barcelona then I don’t know what is not.If we are to break down this further, he got the biggest beating of his life as a manager when he was beaten by Barcelona 5-0. His record vs Barcelona is Win: 5 – Draw: 6 – Loss: 6. Breaking dominance? I don’t think so.While Real Madrid had gone six successive seasons without going past the quarter-finals of the Champions League, Mourinho managed to take the team to three successive semi-final appearances. For any manager that does not think he is special, this would have been an achievement but for the self-styled ‘special one’ then surely he failed in his assignment. La Decima is Real Madrid’s holy-grail and they will spend as much money as it takes to win it. Despite Florentino Perez knowing Mourinho’s polarising nature, he gambled on the risk that La Decima would be achieved.Perez did not take into account the fact that the Mourinho would fail in his attempts to charm the media nor did he think that Mourinho and his dressing room would be at war. While he left Porto, Chelsea and Inter players firmly on his side, he was unable to do the same at Real Madrid. Real Madrid regard themselves as the establishment in Spain. The siege mentality or ‘us against them’ therefore is an alien concept to players at this club. They think they are the elite and would therefore never want to be under dogs in any confrontation. Mourinho asking them to play on the counter attack and kick Barca players to pieces led by his ‘machete man’ Pepe was never going to be sustainable. While he sold the siege mentality at Porto, Inter and Chelsea, it was never going to work at Real Madrid.As a consequence, Iker Casillas, Sergio Ramos, Mesuit Ozil and eventually Pepe went to war against their manager and led to the poor trophy return. It is alleged that a player delegation led by Ramos and Casillas laid the gauntlet down and informed Florentino Perez that they would seek a move away from Real Madrid if Mourinho did not leave.Fast forward to a few weeks back in the Perez-Mourinho divorce, they both proclaimed that their aims had been achieved. Madrid was back at where they belonged. Sure? Breaking Barcelona’s dominance and lifting La Decima? If this includes failing to dismantle the Barcelona hegemony and failing to win La Decima then surely they achieved their objectives.For Mourinho, him winning is all that matters. The rest of us can take a walk. So when Xavi and Iniesta criticise him for ruining the image of Real Madrid and Spanish soccer, it is not surprising that Mourinho responds to this by saying that he hurt these two players by breaking Barca’s dominance. What matters to him is that he won and the rest of us lost despite evidence to the contrary.So the “Special One” or the ‘Happy One’ has lowered his benchmark. Squeezing out wins without trophies is equal to breaking dominance. Well played, Sir. I either win or they lose. Indeed.At a post Copa win celebration, when Mourinho was Sir Bobby Robson’s Assistant at Barca, Mourinho declared that Barca will always be in his heart. Could it be that thereafter, his desire is one day to come back to Barca as the prodigal son? Don’t forget that he lost the chance to manage Barca when he was overlooked and the job was given to Pep Guardiola. The main reason according to Txiki Begiristain (former Barca Football Director now at Man City in the same capacity) why he did not recommend Mourinho for the job was that during the interview, Mourinho spoke for 90% of the time, did not give anybody else a chance to speak and confirmed that he was not willing to change his abrasive nature. Txiki must have known something then. To Mourinho it was all about him. He either won or they lost.