Can Mourinho knock Barcelona off their perch?

It’s been a week since the El Clasico when Barcelona handed a 5-0 drubbing to Real Madrid. Now that the result of the match has sunk in, this might be the time to critically analyze how well Jose Mourinho can do at the helm of the Real Madrid.

Ever since last season’s Champions League, the world has turned to ‘the special one’ constantly as the one capable of beating dream team Barcelona. This is because Mourinho’s Inter Milan prevailed in the semi finals, beating Barcelona comfortably 3-1 in the first leg and parking the bus at Camp Nou to gain a favourable 1-0 defeat. Mourinho’s methods are defensive and his most productive time was at Inter Milan because of the amazing set of players he had. Barcelona’s team chemistry is truly world class and it is testament to the fact that their players have been playing together for so many years and have gelled into an invincible unit. And since no club’s midfield has proved to be capable of outplaying Barcelona’s midfield in the last three years, Mourinho’s defensive method was hailed as the answer to the Barca conundrum. Mourinho stresses on strict discipline with even the creative players performing defensive duties and this is what has worked wonders for him, especially against Barcelona in the 1-0 defeat when Inter were down to 10 men. He transformed players of the calibre of Samuel Eto’o and Diego Milito into team players who were ready to drop in deep whenever necessary. This proved vital as his team flourished even when they rarely had a touch of the ball and achieved favourable results even when they had one or two players sent off. It is notable that in UCL semi final second leg, when Thiago Motta was sent off Mourinho switched Eto’o to the left hand side of midfield and Milito to the right thus forming a congested 5 man midfield and a 4-5-0 formation instead of taking one of the attacking players off, as was expected. With this piece of tactical genius, Inter progressed and were crowned European champions.

Eto'o and Milito admirably performed defensive duties for Inter when necessary

At Madrid, Mourinho has a different set of problems to solve. The Madridista love attacking football and it is obvious that the brief from Florentino Perez is to go out and attack. Hence the Portuguese tactician has changed his style slightly as his team has been playing attacking football. However, this change in methodology came unstuck at the hands of Barcelona who took advantage of Real’s high defensive line and poor team chemistry. These are early days for Real Madrid, true. But whether they are capable of beating Barcelona with their attacking philosophy is highly doubtful. If Mourinho reverts to his defensive style of congesting their own half with players and counter-attacking, he faces a big challenge in transforming players like Ronaldo and Higuain into performing defensive duties. However, he has brought positive change to Real Madrid by bringing in talented youngsters like Khedira, di Maria and Oezil as opposed to the usual Galactico system followed at the club. By doing this, he has players at his disposal that can be moulded easily over time to fit the shape he wants. It’s been just six months since Jose arrived at Madrid. And it will be a while before Mourinho’s Real Madrid can knock Barcelona off their perch.

Ronaldo disappears during games when his team doesn't have possession