La Liga - How Long Will Jose Mourinho Last At Real Madrid?
Real Madrid is known for how often they switch coaches. So here’s just another day, another summer, another coach for Real Madrid. He goes by the name of 'The Special One' and given his impressive resume of title after title after title, no one can really miss him while watching a game of football. He is of course in many ways special but one thing that is not special in any way is his arrival as Real Madrid’s coach this summer - such an occurrence would instead be better qualified as routine. He is none other than Jouse Mourinho, the newly appointed coach for the Real Madrid side.
Real Madrid coaches have come and gone, some emerging triumphant and others woefully disappointing. But one thing that has remained consistent over the past seven years is that the result has always been the same: a swift swing of the axe from above, a widely publicized rolling of heads, and a new figurehead rising to try his hand in the throes of battle. Some would argue that if given enough time and freedom of reign, nearly every coach that Madrid have hired and fired in the past seven years could have been successful. But one of the greatest challenges that come with managing a club like Real Madrid is the need to work under a mountain of pressure coming from the club’s hierarchy, the Spanish media, and the fans themselves. And even more important is the need to do that work quickly and successfully.
The multi-million Euros worth of wealth at the Bernabeu serve in two capacities; to ensure that the team will be able to employ some of the greatest superstar talents on the planet which as a result shorten the fuse of patience on the part of the boardroom amongst the media and the fans. The model at the club under the Florentino Perez dynasty is simple: the club shells out the resources to employ the best players in the world, and the coach’s job is to make those players play the best game on planet earth in order to ensure that they win every game.
On the other hand, Barcelona’s model over the past few seasons has been to make the best players in the world and supplements that core group with other exceptional transfers. Even Barca coach Pep Guardiola adds to this idea of creating one’s wealth through development rather than consumption. At the moment and in the way that counts, Barca’s model has proven to be well and truly superior. Madrid’s reply to this model in signing Mourinho seems to demonstrate a will to prove that their model can ultimately succeed - an insistence upon the view that the greatest players led by the greatest coach will make the greatest team. Such is the theory.
In practice, however, things could turn out drastically different and for a number of Madrid’s previous coaches, it already has. Despite marked success with the Brazilian national team, Vanderlei Luxemburgo’s Blancos side, which consisted of four Brazilians (Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo, Julio Baptista and Robinho), was sadly unmotivated. But even when a coach manages to experience success at Real Madrid, the demands are such that titles do not necessarily serve as enough. At Real Madrid, Mourinho will have some of the world’s most entertaining players at his disposal and it is hard to believe that he would promote such conservative tactics with such an arsenal at his command. But at times, he might resort to such tactics and the patience of the Madrid fans, the boardroom itself, and media only lasts so long. How long will Mourinho last at Real Madrid comes down to three things: how well he can get along with the megalomaniacal powers that be, how many “Olés” the crowd chants in a single match, and how many trophies he lifts to the sky.
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