Jose Mourinho has enjoyed what is arguably his most successful year in managerial football with a treble in the Serie A. Inter Milan enjoyed an unprecedented rout of silverware under the keen eye of ‘the special one’, who will now head west, to the city of Madrid, to hopefully enjoy a similar success that the Spanish giants have not encountered for too many years, seemingly playing in the shadow of the Catalonian supreme.
Madrid have managed to bring the ultimate players to the Spanish side, with an international dream team to drool over, and yet it appears to be a collection of players, unable to gel rather than a team worthy of challenging the European elite. To fix this problem the puppet master behind the scenes in the form of Florentino Perez, has made the decision to bring in a manger capable of managing and exploiting such talent.
Whilst Mourinho is undoubtedly the number one choice of manager if your goal is a multitude of silver, history dictates that he may neglect to bring the same aesthetically pleasing football to the Madrid fans, compared with their Catalonian rivals. Mourinho undeniably gets the job done, but his time at Chelsea, whilst massively successful, was not full of awe-inspiring attacking football and beautifully manipulated moves and goals.
If Mourinho succeeds in bringing domestic and European success to the capital, the Madrid fans who were previously used to a typical Spanish flowing football, may look over this gap in his game plan, when they are forced to watch Mourinho’s dull, albeit flawless defensive displays.
Another problem that may arise will be the same which forced Mourinho out of Chelsea. With Roman Abramovich looking to control the transfers surrounding Chelsea (leading to the Andriy Shevchenko debacle), and Jose Mourinho wanting to ensure that he has full control over the direction of the team. The recent purchases at Madrid, whilst supposedly the buys of Manuel Pellegrini, were all controlled by the president; something that Mourinho will most definitely want to address prior to the opening of the transfer market.
It has also been suggested that Mourinho will raid both the Premiership and the Seria A for players that he has both managed, and those he admired whilst playing against. These names include the defensive attributes that he will want to reinforce the Madrid back line with, such as Ashley Cole of Chelsea, the defensive midfielder Danielle De Rossi of Roma and Maicon, who may be following him from Inter.
The solid attacking midfielders of Stephen Gerrard, who may be looking to play with the European elite once again after a poor Liverpool season, and Frank Lampard, who has been able to find his way into the top four Premiership scorers, putting away 27 goals in all competitions are also on Mourinho’s radar.
With endless funds, and a tactical mind to match any, it appears that Real Madrid may finally crawl back to the peak of both the Spanish League and the European best, only time will tell, but it appears that they will truly be a force to be reckoned with under the watchful eye of El Especial.
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