Mourinho knows how to create good headlines.
When he managed in Chelsea he was charming when he was winning.
But when a big game went against him, Mourinho got nastier than any manager we\’ve ever seen.
Now, after being thrashed 4-1 by a vibrant Dortmund last week, he\’s decided to get his retaliation in first.
Mourino says, “We played the first leg as if it was a friendly. We were so naïve and honest that Lewandowski scored four against us and we didn’t foul him once; Ronaldo had been fouled four times in the first five minutes.”
Referee Howard Webb will not enjoy reading that.
Most of us are amazed to be told that Real Madrid were too naïve and honest.
Mourinho added : “We were bad enough in the first game to know that if we play the same, we will go out. We have to be compact and aggressive.”
I just think he picked the wrong team last week.
Since his best player is Ronaldo, Mourinho created the Ozil-Di Maria-Benzema attack around Ronaldo, so that Madrid can switch the ball from right to left at pace, can find the speeding Portuguese with 35-yard passes down the channels, can use the muscular arts of Benzema to play Ronaldo in, and can even, on occasion, employ the laser-guided long passes of Xabi Alonso.
The positional switches that ruined Madrid in Dortmund were made because Arbeloa and Di Maria didn\’t start.
The right back was suspended and the winger’s wife had just produced a baby, so Di Maria hadn\’t been training with the team
Modric came into central midfield and while the Croatian didn\’t play badly, he slows the game down. Real Madrid were getting battered and Khedira was having the worst game I\’ve seen from him in years.
Khedira had come back to Germany as one of the most consistent and under-rated players of the Spanish champions, and they were getting played off the field by a Jurgen Klopp team which had an average age of 23.
By moving Ozil wide to Di Maria’s flank role, and by starting Higuain rather than Benzema, Mourinho had asked his team to remake all the angles and invent new partnerships on the spot.
That was impossible, so Real Madrid got blown out of the Rhineland by a blizzard of yellow and black bodies and cut down to size by a Polish rapier.
Sergio Ramos has lately been paired at centreback with stylish teenager Varane, and before that with Pepe.
With Arbeloa suspended, Mourinho chose to switch Ramos to right back, pairing Pepe and Varane. Moving Ramos to right back put him too far away from the action and far too far away from Lewandowski, a centre forward who scored four goals.
For me, that 4-1 defeat was an own-goal by the Special One.
Can he turn it round tonight?
Tonight, Real Madrid will be trying to get the ball to Ronaldo more often and in better positions.
Their normal game is to make a range of very specific power football moves which release their main striker.
And Dortmund will be expending colossal energy trying to win the ball back ASAP.
Klopp\’s champions are an energy team who make a few mistakes and recover those mistakes quickly, and Lewandowski is a rare kind of poacher, a finisher with an artful all-round game.
Back on September, on Matchday 1, these two clubs were both in Group D and their campaigns started, predictably, with two pretty tight games.
When Dortmund were at home to Ajax there was only one goal and it didn\’t come till the 87 minutes. The scorer was Lewandowski.
Real Madrid hosted Manchester City and the first goal didn\’t come till 69 minutes and the player who scored it was Edin Dzeko.
Then Marcelo made it 1-1 and Kolarov made it 1-2 and Benzema made it 2-2 and Ronaldo made it 3-2 in 90 minutes.
Cristiano Ronaldo is most consistently exciting powerhouse forward I\’ve seen since Shevchenko in his prime at Dynamo Kiev and AC Milan.
Ronaldo was rested on Saturday, not even on the bench when Real won 2-1 at Celta Vigo.
This most super of superstars knows that a helluva lot rests on him tonight.
And, on this sunny morning in London, part of me believes that tonight\’s semi-final second leg is a drama for the home team, but still an adventure for the visitors.
My best wishes to Howard Webb, who knows it\’s not job to keep 22 players on the pitch.
Howard\’s job is to make sure that 22 players play within the rules.