#2 Hiring Jose Mourinho
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A lot of Madridistas might frown at this point given the negative aura that Jose Mourinho left behind during his time at the capital club (more on that later). However, what can’t be denied by even the staunchest Mourinho critic is the progressive change that the club saw after he took over the reins.
After toppling Barcelona with Inter, Florentino Perez regarded the Portuguese as the one who could dismantle the Catalans’ dominance in Spain and Europe. And so he signed the former Porto boss and the self-proclaimed ‘Special One’.
Now, his tenure didn’t bring much success, except for the league title in his second season and the Copa del Rey in his first, but what he did infuse in the team was the unbreakable mentality that can still be seen in the players.
The ghost of elimination from the Round of 16 of the Champions League kept haunting Real Madrid for more than half a decade and it was the former Inter boss that exorcised them. His ‘us against the world’ mentality might often get on the nerves, but it was what truly gave the Madrid strength and determination needed to succeed.
