The most damning indictment of Louis van Gaal’s miserable reign at Old Trafford was that all of United’s leading rivals, not least Manchester City, where Guardiola begins work on July 1, were eager for the Dutchman to remain in the post.
But Mourinho’s impending appointment at United will mean, among many other things, the tantalising resumption in Manchester of a rivalry with Guardiola that, for two years in Spain, was as entertaining, explosive and ultimately toxic off the pitch as the bitter battle waged on it by their teams, Real Madrid and Barcelona.
With Mourinho in tow, the John McEnroe to Guardiola’s Bjorn Borg if you will, perhaps this is the moment when City cease to be the “noisy neighbours” – as Sir Alex Ferguson once mischievously derided them – and United become them.
The intensity of the rivalry took so much out of both men that it will be interesting to see if there is quite the appetite for a bloody re-match but perhaps it will prove unavoidable or, rather, the chance to antagonise Guardiola once again will be too enticing for Mourinho to resist as he bids to put United back on top – and hurt City in the process.
Perhaps United might encounter a slightly humbler Mourinho given the humiliation of how things ended at Chelsea second time round, although Marca, the Madrid sports newspaper, evidently has little expectation of a leopard changing its spots after declaring in a headline on Monday that “the disease has come to Manchester”.
That City also happen to be run by two men – Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain – who were instrumental in rejecting this abrasive fire-starter in favour of appointing Guardiola as Barcelona coach in 2008 is probably only likely to deepen Mourinho’s competitive edge. And if Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the Sweden striker who has no love for Guardiola either, ends up partnering Mourinho in Manchester next season, as seems likely, sparks really could fly.
In his excellent book, Fear and Loathing In La Liga: Barcelona vs Real Madrid, Sid Lowe wrote that Mourinho “decided that the best way to defeat Barcelona was to get under their skin, and under the skin of Guardiola in particular, to wage a war of attrition, all weapons allowed”.
That City also happen to be run by two men – Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain – who were instrumental in rejecting this abrasive fire-starter in favour of appointing Guardiola as Barcelona coach in 2008 is probably only likely to deepen Mourinho’s competitive edge. And if Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the Sweden striker who has no love for Guardiola either, ends up partnering Mourinho in Manchester next season, as seems likely, sparks really could fly.
In his excellent book, Fear and Loathing In La Liga: Barcelona vs Real Madrid, Sid Lowe wrote that Mourinho “decided that the best way to defeat Barcelona was to get under their skin, and under the skin of Guardiola in particular, to wage a war of attrition, all weapons allowed”.
With City looking eminently more beatable than the Barcelona team that Mourinho encountered when he rocked up at Real in May 2010, fresh from defeating Guardiola’s side en route to lifting the Champions League with Inter Milan, the Portuguese might feel he does not have to play quite so dirty. But could United versus City ever really get as ugly as Barça versus Real did, when the football was often overshadowed by fighting and faking, cheating and complaining, propaganda and politics, a far cry from those days in the late 1990s when Guardiola and Mourinho were allies on the same side at Barcelona?
The nadir probably came in August 2011 when Mourinho poked a finger in the eye of Tito Vilanova, Guardiola’s assistant, after Real defender Marcelo had sparked a mass melée with an awful challenge on Barcelona’s Cesc Fabregas at the end of a tumultuous Spanish Super Cup game. Mourinho claimed after the game not to know “this Pito Vilanova or whatever his name is” when, in reality, he knew precisely who he was along with the derogatory meaning of the word “pito” and how much it would offend Guardiola.
But while the bad blood festered for months after that flashpoint, it had been building to a crescendo for some time before then, not least during the course of 18 incendiary days in April and May that year when Real and Barcelona met four times in three different competitions. Guardiola had seldom risen to Mourinho’s bait but he released a year of pent-up anger and frustration before the first leg of their Champions League semi-final at the Bernabeu. “In this [press] room, he [Mourinho] is the puno jefe, the puto amo [the f------ boss, the f------ master],” Guardiola snorted with derision. “I don’t want to compete with him for a moment [for that title]. I just want to recall that we were together for four years [at Barcelona]. I know him and he knows me. And that’s what I hold on to.”
But if Mourinho had happy memories of working as an assistant to Sir Bobby Robson and Van Gaal at Barcelona, where Guardiola was the iconic player the Portuguese always dreamt of being, he kept them well hidden.
After Real lost the first leg 2-0, Mourinho launched into a tirade that was extraordinary even by his standards, effectively accusing Uefa of fixing it so Barcelona could reach the final and questioning whether their Unicef sponsorship was an influencing factor as he reeled off a history of refereeing decisions that he felt had gone in the Catalan club’s favour.
“One day,” Mourinho said, “I would like Josep Guardiola to win this competition properly.”
When Mourinho later claimed that he and Guardiola were more or less the same, it was just that the Portuguese was honest about the way he is, Guardiola responded: “I’ll have to revise my behaviour then.” Indeed, despite once beating Mourinho’s Real 6-2 at the Bernabeu, Guardiola claimed the malevolent side-shows that so often surrounded the Clasicos meant he struggled to recall any with particular fondness. “There are always reasons that aren’t related to the game that have made a lot of things incomprehensible to me,” he said once.
He might end up feeling the same way about the Manchester derby in time.
Round one will be in Beijing on July 25, when United and City square up in a pre-season friendly. The mind games will probably have started well before then, though.