As far as the Spanish sporting press goes, a good rule of thumb to abide by is that, if the twin Catalan-based newspapers Sport and El Mundo Deportivo aren’t running with another ‘Barcelona make us giggle like schoolgirls’ cover story, then there must be a potentially devastating ruction to try and undermine over at Real Madrid.
The same also works in reverse with MARCA and AS, but it just so happens that you will only need to bear the former in mind for the time being.
Both of the ridiculously partisan Barca organs have whipped themselves up into a froth today over Jose Mourinho‘s apparent refusal to commit to Madrid past the end of the current season, each running with apocalyptic headlines – with El Mundo even claiming that the Bernabeu is ‘burning down’ amidst the seething maelstrom of infernal hatred that has formed between the Portuguese coach and his immediate superiors.
Which, I think it’s fairly safe to suggest, is airing a little on the ‘melodramatic’ side.
The most recent addendum to the ongoing schism between Mourinho and Real’s sporting director Jorge Valdano supposedly stems from the latter’s reluctance to fritter away yet another huge swathe of cash in trying to snare a temporary replacement for sidelined striker Gonzalo Higuain (his reasoning presumably being that the club still have €35 million’s worth of Karim Benzema waiting to step up and into the Argentine’s breach), whereas Mourinho wanted to bring in the perennially gittish Emmanuel Adebayor on an £160,000-a-week loan deal.
Mourinho’s proposal was unceremoniously nipped in the bud by Valdano and his high-ranking cronies, and our Jose was not best pleased:
“I am not the one to talk to about our strikers anymore.
I did all that in pre-season, when I said we needed more than two, and again in November, when everyone knew that Higuain would need a long time to recover.”
Mourinho went on to bemoan the constant rumours that were pedalled by the Spanish press, who reacted by (mis)quoting him as saying ‘I want to leave’ in relation to his post at Real, when instead he had merely requested to leave a press conference early on Wednesday evening as he was ‘unhappy’.
Again, Mourinho was immediately back on the defensive – continuing with a barely-veiled tirade after overseeing last night’s 1-0 Copa Del Rey win over city rivals Atletico Madrid:
“The world is full of rumours, but they’re not all true. Regarding my future, we’ll see what happens at the end of the season.
Contracts aren’t the most important thing in football. If all the parties are happy at the end of a campaign, they remain together. If they aren’t, they don’t.”
Which, of course, set the wheels of conjecture in motion once again – with Mourinho’s entirely self-conscious ‘lack of commitment’ duly sparking the ridiculous Domesday-esque headlines that were mentioned a few paragraphs ago.
Let the spinning wheel spin, and all that…
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