Mourinho Returns to a Clasico Haunted by His War with Guardiola

Some coaches arrive at a club. Others arrive at a war. When Jose Mourinho landed at Real Madrid in May 2010, he showed up for the latter. On Sunday, thirteen and a half years after his last Clasico, he returns to the same stage with the same question hanging in the air: is he still the man who can bend Barcelona to his will?

Mourinho says he doesn't look back. He made that clear in August, in his first press conference as Madrid's coach after 13 years away from LaLiga, when asked if he'd missed the Bernabeu. "I'm not one for regrets," he said. The line sounds like a preemptive excuse, but it also reads as a statement of intent.

Because what Mourinho left behind in the Clasico between 2010 and 2013 wasn't just a run of results, it was an earthquake. He faced Barcelona 17 times across LaLiga, the Copa del Rey, the Supercopa and the Champions League, first against Pep Guardiola and, in his final season, against Tito Vilanova. The final tally: 5 wins, 6 draws and 6 losses.

That rivalry played out between two teams brushing up against the impossible, both topping 100 points in the same campaign, and with Messi setting a record of 50 LaLiga goals in 2011-12 that still wasn't enough to wrestle the title away from Mourinho's Madrid. Pep against Jose, Messi against Cristiano. It wasn't always pretty. Sometimes it was a nightmare. But it never stopped being gripping, and at the center of that chaos, loving every minute of it, was Mourinho.

From the Historic Rout to the First Trophy

The debut couldn't have gone worse. On November 29, 2010, in his first Clasico in charge of Madrid after 12 straight league wins to open the season, Barca handed him a 5-0 thrashing at Camp Nou, with two goals from David Villa and a collective masterclass from Messi, Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets. Mourinho himself called it "historically bad." It's the ghost he'll want to banish this Sunday.

What followed was madness: four Clasicos in 18 days that same season. A 1-1 draw at the Bernabeu with penalties from Messi and Cristiano, a Copa del Rey final decided by a Ronaldo header in the 103rd minute off a Di Maria cross (Mourinho's first trophy at Madrid), and a Champions League semifinal lost 3-1 on aggregate, marked by red cards and tension in the tunnel. Mourinho couldn't even coach the second leg, he was suspended over comments he made after the first.

"Against Barcelona you have no chance. I don't know if it's because of the UNICEF sponsorship on the shirt... I don't know if it's because they're very nice. But they have this power"Jose Mourinho

His reputation hit its lowest point in August 2011, when during a scuffle at the Supercopa he was caught poking Vilanova in the eye. He apologized afterward. But that same tension, strange as it sounds, also delivered results: in 2011-12 Madrid snatched the title away from Barca, sealed with a 2-1 win at Camp Nou on April 21, 2012, with a Cristiano goal and his trademark "calm down, calm down" gesture.

Guardiola left soon after, worn down.

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

Gerard Pique summed it up in his own way years later on the show The Overlap, discussing the rivalry with Mourinho: "Sometimes what happened off the pitch was more important than what happened on the pitch."

In his final season, the title went back to Barca, but by then Mourinho had figured them out: he didn't lose any of his last five Clasicos. The end came in May 2013, with Florentino Perez calling it a "mutual agreement" despite a contract that ran through 2016.

A Return with a Different Rival on the Bench

Now the picture repeats itself in several ways: Madrid arrives without a trophy in two seasons, just as in 2010, and across the touchline it's no longer Guardiola but Hansi Flick, who has won six of the last seven Clasicos with a goal difference of 22-11. Flick's Barca come in unbeaten in LaLiga; Mourinho's Madrid is still a team under construction.

Sunday might not bring back that overflowing rivalry from thirteen years ago. But as Mourinho himself hinted when recalling Perez's phone calls after every Madrid title won in his absence, there are old wounds and unsettled scores that don't fade so easily.