Mourinho Returns to the Clásico That Shaped His Legacy

Some coaches return to a place and pass through quietly. Mourinho is not one of them. When he came back to the Real Madrid bench after 13 years away from LaLiga, he was asked if he had missed the Bernabéu. His answer was classic Mourinho: he said he does not look back, that he does not dwell on regrets or wrong decisions. But in El Clásico, the biggest fixture in club football, Mourinho left behind far too much for anyone to forget, starting with himself.

Between 2010 and 2013 he faced Barcelona 17 times across LaLiga, the Copa del Rey, the Spanish Super Cup, and the Champions League. First against Pep Guardiola, then against Tito Vilanova, his former assistant. The final tally: five wins, six draws, and six losses. It looks even on paper, but it was so much more than a stat line.

Those were the years of Madrid and Barcelona both flirting with 100 points in a single season, of Messi scoring 50 goals in LaLiga in 2011-12, a mark that still was not enough to wrestle the title away from Mourinho's Madrid. Pep against Jose. Messi against Cristiano. It was not always pretty, sometimes it was downright ugly, but it never stopped being mesmerizing. And right in the middle of it, soaking up every minute of the circus, was Mourinho.

In this press room, he's the boss, he's the one in charge. He's the smartest guy in the world.Pep Guardiola

Guardiola is long gone from this story, but Mourinho is back, handpicked by Florentino Pérez to fix a Madrid side that has gone two seasons without a trophy. The setup is not all that different from May 2010, when Mourinho arrived fresh off a Champions League win with Inter: a Madrid without recent silverware facing a Barcelona side already established and run by a Guardiola coming off a historic Treble.

A brutal debut and a four-match war

His first season started brilliantly, with 12 league matches without a loss. Then came his first Clásico, on November 29, 2010, and Barcelona taught him a lesson: 5-0 at Camp Nou, the most lopsided Clásico scoreline since 1995, with David Villa scoring twice. Mourinho himself called it "historically bad."

What followed was even more intense: four Clásicos in barely 18 days that same season. There was a 1-1 draw at the Bernabéu with penalties converted by Messi and Cristiano, a Copa del Rey final that Madrid did win thanks to a Cristiano header in the 103rd minute, and a Champions League semifinal that ultimately went Barcelona's way. Along the way there were red cards, refereeing controversies, and even a suspension for Mourinho after he accused Barcelona, without proof, of receiving favorable treatment.

The low point came in August 2011, during the Spanish Super Cup, when cameras caught Mourinho poking a finger into Vilanova's eye during a scuffle at Camp Nou. He later apologized.

The title that changed history, and a bittersweet farewell

But that tension, strange as it seemed, worked for him. In 2011-12, Mourinho's Madrid pulled off what had looked impossible: they won the league away from Guardiola's Barcelona, with a crucial 2-1 win at Camp Nou on April 21, 2012, a decisive Cristiano goal included. Guardiola left the club that summer. He later admitted just how draining the whole thing had been.

I left Barcelona because I was exhausted. I was on my knees.Pep Guardiola

Gerard Piqué summed it up this way in a conversation with Gary Neville.

For Guardiola, at some point it was too much. Sometimes what happened off the pitch mattered more than what happened on it.Gerard Piqué

With Vilanova now in charge of Barcelona, the 2012-13 league title slipped away from Madrid by 15 points, though Mourinho closed out his spell unbeaten in his final five Clásicos. His exit from the club, despite having a contract through 2016, came in May 2013 in what Florentino Pérez described as "a mutual agreement."

Now Mourinho is back for a Clásico after 13 and a half years, but the man on the opposing bench is no longer Guardiola or Vilanova, it's Hansi Flick, who has won six of the last seven Clásicos with a Barcelona side that arrives unbeaten in the league and scoring goals in bunches. It won't be the same frantic rivalry as before. Maybe, in the end, that's not such a bad thing.