Jose Mourinho's first stage at Real Madrid began at the Santiago Bernabéu, but in a match against Inter Milan. It was in the final of the 2010 Champions League held at Chamartín. The Portuguese won the title against Bayern and ended up crying alongside Materazzi in the stadium's parking lot. He didn't even return to Italy with the rest of the team. He stayed in the Spanish capital to accelerate his early days as the new coach of the white team. Today, more than 16 years after that day, Mourinho starts at the Bernabéu against Inter pursuing his last big dream: winning the European Cup with Real Madrid. And with a similar challenge: turning a team of stars into "a family," as he did at San Siro. Such is the fate of the ball.
"He managed to create a family. Our relationship was much more than that of a coach and his team," explains Javier Zanetti about Mourinho's Inter in the documentary that Netflix has aired about the Portuguese. There is no other way to explain why he got out of the car, walked towards Materazzi, who was broken next to the bus despite having won the Champions League, and hugged him for a few seconds. "They were truly a family," those who know the Portuguese best insist now. "I didn't return to Milan because if I went back with them, I wouldn't have been able to leave," confessed the Portuguese in the documentary.
Mourinho drove that star-studded Inter towards European conquest. He ended the era of galactic egos and transformed the group's competitiveness. "For Mourinho, I would have played in any position, even as a full-back," explains Eto'o in the piece about the Portuguese coach. "He turned me into a killer," Ibrahimovic asserts.
The Mourinho who arrived at San Siro found a dressing room led by Figo, Adriano, and Ibrahimovic, but the Inter that lifted the Champions League at the Bernabéu no longer had any of them. "You don't train footballers. You train men who play football. You can have the best players, but if you don't have the best men, you don't have a team," the coach states.
This phrase sums up his time in Italy but also the idea he has tried to convey in his early weeks at Valdebebas. He wants the dressing room to be "a family." The Inter he joined in the summer of 2008 was the champion of Italy but couldn't make the leap to the next level in Europe. Many stars, but a relatively distant group.
Everything revolved around Ibrahimovic, the top scorer in Serie A but unable to push the team to a continental title. In the summer of 2009, the Swede told Mourinho he was going to Barcelona. "I understand that you are going there to win the Champions League, but this year I will win it," the Portuguese replied. And he did.
The departure of the forward ended up benefiting the dressing room, which rallied around the coach. It was a squad of veterans who saw in the Portuguese their last chance to conquer Europe. "Mourinho was a shield, a friend, a father, and a brother," explains Materazzi. Here lies one of the main differences with the Madrid group he has found at Valdebebas. A young squad, many of whom have won the Champions League, who have suffered two years of failures in Europe and in Spain and whose daily lives have been torpedoed in the last season.
Mourinho has landed in that reality, with the authority also granted by Florentino Pérez but within a group led by a star, Vinicius, who won the battle against Xabi Alonso just a few months ago. "Mourinho also tore us apart and gave us huge scoldings. He knew which buttons to press," Materazzi insists.
Mourinho is cautiously pressing those buttons. For now, he is flattering in some statements and provocative in others, albeit less frequently. In general, he has arrived at the club in a very different way than in 2010 when he changed the recent history of a dressing room that couldn't get past the round of 16 or quarter-finals in the Champions League. "Now he has arrived 'calm'," they insist at the training ground, with a less revolutionary internal tone. However, the intention is the same as in 2010: "To win." "In this club, everything revolves around winning," he admitted yesterday in the pre-match press conference.
"I have found a club... That is Real Madrid. And I think that's enough. Real Madrid is Real Madrid. A Real Madrid that has had a very complicated season in the past, and when this happens, there are many things you must improve. One is the basis of stability and the other, the problematic issue. And that's the matter, that's the matter...," he reflected in the press room, without fully specifying the chosen words.
"We always want to win. But I repeat, one thing is fixing the problematic base and another, for example looking at Inter, there is the stability issue: despite changing coaches in recent years, there is stability. Conte, Inzaghi, Chivu... 5-3-2, dynamics, stability, market structure. Stability," he reiterated. "Real Madrid has to move towards that level, but regardless of this, Real is Real. A club that is all about winning," he concluded.
13 years after leaving Madrid and 16 years after winning the final with Inter, Mourinho returns to the Bernabéu in the Champions League with tasks on the table and with the example of the Inter "family" in front of him. The Madridista family is watching.