Why

Real Madrid is living an "every man for himself" situation whose script marks the chance of the wind that blows the cornerstone of all this mess on the head: José Mourinho. The Portuguese man arrived last summer in the Santiago Bernabéu because Florentino Pérez dug his heels in about him and paid 16,000,000 euros to the Inter. The president's change of heart in these years seems curious when formerly he thought the galactic guys were trained on their own, that it all was reduced to putting the trading cards onto the field. The example that illustrates it all is when he fired Del Bosque whereas he celebrated the League in the locker room (he had won two Champions' Leagues before) to bring a blue-look man, Carlos Queiroz, whose achievement until then had been to be a coach's assistant.

The thing is that Pérez signed Mourinho up in a unilateral and real personal way passing over the person who deal with these needs, Jorge Valdano. The president, once more, has to shut his trap. He'd said tens of times that he didn't know about soccer and that those decisions belonged to Valdano. Well, no: Valdano aimed for Pellegrini's but he was brought Mourinho. The nitty-gritty of the thing is the Argentinian and the Portuguese man kind of fell out over some columns in Marca. "Quien no tuvo talento para jugar no cree lo suficiente en el talento para improvisar soluciones", May 2005; "Mourinho es un carisma andante que no sabe muy bien lo que representa", September 6^th 2008. That is right, the presentation of the Portuguese man was sort of rare. "We already sorted it out", "everything's in order"... Valdano doing his stuff and Mourinho not bluffing in the least. If something is clear is that the Portuguese man passes on shows.

Just as the season was drawing on, Mourinho was accumulating power. Even more than whatever he could imagine at the beginning. In fact, a coach of Mourinho's strength isn't remembered. The grandstand and the loudspeakers of the Bernabéu amuse themselves with his good name. He accumulates all the prominence over the figures of the team. Everything with an advertising speech full of incongruities but very populist: fans fight to the death with him. What young boys in Madrid's scarves boast about in bars, Mourinho did live, before twenty television cameras and with repercussion all over the world. The issue was to look for a fight. A continuous weekly wallop with whomever passed by: Pedro León, Preciado, Unicef, referees. One of his favorites was Valdano, who was in theory Mourinho's boss, but he suffered his subordinate's mobbing. First he forbade him to go in Valdebebas, afterward he didn't let him travel in the same plane as the team... The Argentinian changed from Real Madrid's general director, Florentino's second-in-command, to the person in charge of caring for the mikes of Canal Plus in the breaks of the games with an annual wage of 2,400,000 euros. More than half of the players of the first squad. Mourinho had turned Valdano into that. Things were already nice and warm formerly with that thing about journalistic articles, but the Argentinian refusing Mourinho's delusions of doing both the Portuguese team and Real Madrid simultaneously was the last straw that broke the camel's back: they stopped having any communication, Valdano got tired of asking for three-party meetings with Florentino Pérez to solve the issue but his request was never cared for. The day Mourinho stood up to the press, after this one dumping him, he came up before everybody and said to the mikes that he'd only speak with the media directors. Curiously he didn't exchange any words with his director, Valdano.

And what was Florentino doing meanwhile? Well, nothing, doing his own thing; preaching the good name of Real Madrid and his own. He's a superior being, or at least that's what Butragueño says. The president's error is brought because he'd always surrounded himself with a series of parapets that took up all the criticism and did as a defense wall, namely: Valdano, Sacchi, Pardeza... He has Zidane, one of his favorite associates, they say he's an exception reporter from the locker room to the office in his times of player. But you don't have to fool yourself, Zidane doesn't mean a thing; he's a figure to take the pictures who isn't going to hold up in the least the direct line that Mourinho has now with Florentino. The trainer said it in March: "el discurso del rey Florentino es importante para mí". Then, Valdano out, the King ran out of all the pawns, all the defenses. Mourinho deciding to put him in check only depends on him.

Guardiola said it and we were surprised at it: "él aquí es el puto jefe, el puto amo".