Confessions of a Football Turncoat - How I dumped Barca for Real Madrid

I am a Spurs fan, yet tonight is one of those nights when worries and anxieties over Spurs have to be put aside for a little bit. We can pick that all up when we head to Stamford Bridge in a few days’ time and remember why we all fell in love with football in the first place. I think going back to my time as a kid, when I still dreamt of playing football professionally before adolescence and reality set in, I used to dream of playing first for Spurs and then get a transfer to Barcelona. Barca were the first foreign team I heard of because of good old Terry Venables, Gary Lineker and Stevie Archibald plying their trade there. I have very vague recollections of a European Cup final which Barca dominated before losing on penaltiess. But Barca were exotic, they had glamour and if leaving Spurs for Barca was good enough for Stevie Archibald, it was good enough for me. My formative years as a football lover were of course during that bleak period for English football when we were banned from Europe so it was only after Italia 90, the first World Cup that I really remember that suddenly these glamorous exotic names came on to my radar again. In 1991 English Clubs were allowed back into Europe. I remember going to Villa Park to watch Aston Villa taking on and beating Inter Milan 2-0 (courtesy of a friend who had a number of Villa supporting family). It was a team that contained three German World Cup Winners and almost half the Italian National Team. So close to Italia 90 for a football mad primary school kid like me these were the true superstars of our game at that time and I was watching them live. Then a miracle happened, in the Cup Winners Cup Manchester United were due to meet Barcelona in the final. Now for the best part of four years at least I had forgotten all about Barca, the Italian league was where all the stars were but I still carried a bit of a torch for Barca and they were up against Manchester United, a team which for some unknown reason I had an irrational hatred towards and these were the days before United were the global force they now are (and my irrational hatred has now subsided to grudging respect). I watched the likes of Hughesy, Brucey, erm Robsoney(???) line up against the famous Barca that summer evening in ’91 in sheer anticipation of seeing the mighty Barca give United a footballing lesson. And then suddenly I realised I had heard of absolutely none of the Barca players. That’s right zilch, nada. But who cares Barca were my team (after Spurs of course, never forget Spurs) and they were going to destroy the evil Mancunians. To cut a long story short they didn’t, they lost 2-1 and English teams celebrated their first season back in Europe with a trophy win.

However my Barcelona supporting days reached their zenith the following year. Johan Cruyff’s team beat Sampdoria in the final at Wembley through a Ronald Koeman free-kick, they were finally European Champions and they also had a player I had heard of! Little did Barcelona know about the bombshell that was due on the horizon which would change their future for ever. My parents had planned a family trip to Madrid and suddenly the whole game of supporting a foreign team had changed and things were never the same again. For, in Madrid there resided a team that captivated me from the moment we took the taxi from Barajas airport to our hotel. We drove past their ground, I could see into their stadium. The taxi actually drove underneath the ground, you can’t do that at White Hart Lane.

The team’s name was:

Atletico Madrid.

In that moment I swapped and my foreign team supporting heart was forever with Atletico. I could never leave them. I felt guilty about Barca of course, but I’d driven (or been driven to be precise) underneath Atletico’s ground. How much more REAL can you get? With apologies for the corny entry, I was about to find out. That afternoon we went sightseeing around Madrid. My old man was determined to get to a place called the Santiago Bernabeu. There was a tube stop there ( I’m from London, everything metro service is called “The Tube” to me). My old dear was prattling on about some art museum. My dad won out and we arrived and as we stepped out of the stadium was one of the most fantastic sights I’ve ever seen. The Santiago Bernabeu, a true cathedral. Apparently it was home to some team called Real Madrid, who I didn’t know much about. The Old Man explained how he’d come to the Bernabeu in the ’80s to see us in the UEFA Cup and we had drawn but gone out on aggregate. Great stuff there dad, tell me about another team who had beaten Spurs, cheers. But I was intoxicated by the stadium, it was in the city centre, it looked like it was from another world and out Wembley to shame. In fact until I saw the San Siro in the flesh many years later, I can’t quite recall ever experiencing such a jaw dropping moment. And thus my fate was sealed my foreign team of choice was Real Madrid, they played in all white after all, and it has been to this day.

I laughed when Barca were humiliated by Milan in a subsequent European Cup final and celebrated Real’s return to European glory in the late 90s and subsequent wins over Valencia and Leverkusen from the comfort of my armchair. I have been to the Bernebeau twice now. Let’s not dwell too much on the last result. I’ve been to the Nou Camp as well and I maintain the Bernabea is the more striking of the two. Given my background in the mean world of Corporate Finance, there’s something I love about the Bernabeu being at the heart of the city’s financial district. Imagine having a football stadium on Bishopsgate!

IN MOURINHO’S DEFENCE

Mourinho's critics may deride him for his boring style but The Special One always shuts their mouths through functional football that 'wins trophies'

Onto tonight’s match and I have always seen a lot of uninformed rubbish about how this is Beautiful Football vs Ugly Football. Whereas Guardiola is the defender of the beautiful game, Mourinho is the champion of the Artisans. To coin my favourite term, that’s just gash. Mourinho builds team who win well. Football is about competition, people in general find open games of football where both teams have loads of chances exciting. Barcelona are perhaps one of the few examples I can think of in modern times, where a team combines skilful football with almost total domination. Think of our poor country bumpkin neighbours down the road who of course proclaim to play the beautiful game. What’s actually so beautiful about little short passes leading up to the edge of the area and then breaking down before starting again. The only reason the Woolwich Nomads are entertaining is when they comically let slip another goal and their brittle confidence takes another battering. They are in no shape or form another Barcelona. In fact I would say the same applies for Spurs, we are entertaining because we give teams a chance. We need to go 3-0 down before we decide to play or we just collapse totally to the despair of our fans but in a way that entertains the footballing public. Its car crash tv. Mourinho’s teams don’t do that. They win and most of the time they win comfortably. And unfortunately that doesn’t entertain. I’m no different to anyone else. I remember going to see our home game against Werder Bremen and we won comfortably 3-0 and I was a little bored. Our performance was great, we were never troubled but it was a bit meh. For fans who don’t support Jose’s teams, that’s what they see. They see their own teams not being able to win as comfortably and console themselves that Mourinho’s sides are boring. I’ve heard loads of tosh about how Inter Milan won the Champions League the ugly way, mainly from Liverpool “fans” and of course our Country Bumpkin neighbours. No axe to grind there right?

How of course Inter parked the bus at the Nou Camp, but then they fail to reflect on how they triumphed 3-1 at the San Siro, I guess that was achieved by parking the bus. Yet when Arsene Wenger took a team to the Nou Camp which managed precisely zero shots on or off target, nothing is said because it puts a hole right into the middle of their straw man argument. A good defensive display is just as easy to admire for true football lovers as amazing attacking genius. It doesn’t have to be cynical or dirty, it can be elegant. Think Beckenbauer, Moore, Baresi, Maldini ( a hero of mine given I play at left back) et al. The fact is that those who try and deride Mourinho’s achievements resent him because he’s successful and he does success on the most part with ease and arrogance. The media is there to incite and these football Neanderthals lap it up. They fail to notice that Barca’s artists do the artisans’ work as well and that’s why they are successful.

Successful football encompasses both skill and endeavour, the two are not not mutually independent and those who do it well make it look easy. Barcelona certainly have raised the stakes even higher, but the Madrid team Mourinho is forming is hungry and young. The midfield trio of Khedira, Ozil and Alonso combines tenacity, pure skill and amazing passing ability. I believe and of course am rooting for Real to overturn Barca and get to Wembley, not least because it gives those who cry foul at Mourinho’s achievement another chance to embarrass themselves with their total lack of knowledge.

Please find the original article in my blog The Glory Game