After 3 years, 3 trophies, lots of in-house fighting, power struggles, war with the media and other managers, Jose Mourinho has left Real Madrid and everyone is glad. Fans, Players, the board of directors of the club, the Spanish media, even Jose himself is happy to be leaving and in truth it is the best move for everyone involved. But how will his stint as manager of Los Blancos be rated, a failure or success?
The 2010 World Fifa Coach of the year was brought into the club to achieve a number of targets including, breaking the monopoly of F.C Barcelona in La Liga and winning "la decima" Madrid's 10th UEFA champions league trophy.
ON LA DECIMA
When he took over the Club, Madrid were in danger of becoming Europe's whooping boys as they had not made it past the second round in what seemed like ages. But he made them contenders and even favourites as he took the club to heights that eluded them for so long, making the semis three times in a row. Even though he didn't win the Champions league, Mourinho has made Madrid a force to be reckoned with again in Europe.
ON BREAKING BARCA'S MONOPOLY IN THE LA LIGA
This task was neither simple nor straight forward. For one, Pep Guardiola had found a way to make his Barcelona team very efficient in and out of possession to devastating effect with one Lionel Messi constantly putting teams to the sword. Beating a team considered to be one of the greatest of all time wasn't going to be easy, managers were not exactly lining up to take on this team just ask former Manchester United Manager, Sir Alex Ferguson.
Secondly, Real Madrid had been psychologically damaged by Barca, in fact they could beat every other team in the Primera Division except the Blaugrana, the El Clasico was now so one sided. But Jose Mourinho, even though he took some battering in the beginning found a way (including some eye-poking tactics) to reverse the spell by which this team was bound that the El Clasico was a more exciting prospect on calenders of football fans around the globe.
He won the Copa Del Rey playing against Barca in the final in his first season and brought home the la Liga in his second setting a new record number of points tally . In his third and final season, he beat Barcelona to win the Super Copa.
By Mourinho's high standards, 3 trophies in 3 years isn't good enough, even with a win ratio of over 71% and 100+ goals scored in each of the three seasons as Real Madrid boss but then there wouldn't be a lot of successful managers by his standards.
But knowing 'the special one' like a Phoenix from the ashes he will rise to capture the minds of football lovers like he did at the beginning of his career as manager.
