José Mourinho’s first Clásico since returning to Real Madrid comes at Spotify Camp Nou on Sunday night, and his opening message on the eve of it was that nothing his team has done so far counts.
“When we’re on a roll, we play well, we score goals… but the Clásico isn’t about what you’ve done before; it doesn’t matter. It really is different,” Mourinho said in his pre-match press conference on Saturday.
Kiyan Sobhani, host of the Managing Madrid podcast, has been a regular at Mourinho’s press conferences this season and was in the room again on Saturday morning. “He was very stoic and didn’t want to give anything away,” Sobhani told me and it was clear, as on team selection, he gave away nothing at all. “I’m not going to answer that… let’s ask another question instead,” Mourinho said. “About plans, who’s going to play, the line-up, I’m not going to answer.” When the journalist reworded his question, Mourinho laughed, “you’re clever, but I’m not stupid!”. On almost everything else, the Mourinho of 2010 to 2013 was easy to find.
Referees, Negreira And Fermín López
Earlier this week, Barcelona midfielder Fermín López said Madrid’s complaints about referees were “getting tiresome” and that his team was focused on its own game. Mourinho needed one line to answer. “What can I say? We get fed up with other things, and yet they keep happening…”
He went further when asked about reports that referee Juan Martínez Munuera had paid for coaching from José María Enríquez Negreira, the former vice-president of the refereeing committee at the centre of the case against Barcelona. “That comes as a bit of a surprise to me,” Mourinho said. “The referee’s name never bothers me. I start from the premise that the referee is good; what bothers me is that the rules are being broken and, according to internal sources, this still isn’t known. Three weeks ago one name came up, now another, but nobody internally has told me, ‘the referee is official’.”
Munuera’s appointment was confirmed hours after the press conference. The Spanish football federation (RFEF) insisted that it would not name the Clásico referee until Saturday, 24 hours before kickoff, as is standard. That was despite reports in recent weeks that Alejandro Hernández Hernández, Spain’s only referee at the 2026 World Cup, had already been appointed.
Why Mourinho is talking down the table
The numbers explain why Mourinho wanted to separate Sunday from everything before it, and everything to follow. Barcelona won their first 11 games of the season in all competitions before Paris Saint-Germain beat them 4-2 in the Champions League on Tuesday. Real Madrid’s 4-1 win over Sevilla last Sunday, with two goals from Kylian Mbappé, cut Barcelona’s lead at the top of LaLiga to six points, but a home win on Sunday would put Barcelona nine points clear.
Despite defeats already this season to Real Betis and Atlético Madrid, Real Madrid beat RB Leipzig 4-1 at the Bernabéu on Wednesday for a third win from three in the Champions League, after victories over Inter and Roma.
Mourinho dismissed the idea that the Paris result would rattle Barcelona, saying, “I don’t think losing one match will change his state of mind or his confidence. Nor would it have changed me if we’d lost 4-1 to Leipzig.”
He also pushed back on the comparison between the two squads. “We’re seen as a finished product, and that’s very difficult in football, but we’re not at an advanced stage of that process; we’ve been working for three months, with a pre-season where players were arriving in pairs each week, then the break,” he said. “Comparing a team at this stage with one that’s been together for several years doesn’t seem fair to me.”
Questions about Barcelona coach Hansi Flick got shorter answers. “I don’t understand the questions about our opponents. He’s a great coach; he’s doing a brilliant job. What do you want me to say?”
“Real Madrid win trophies with Mourinho”
The sharpest line came when he was asked whether Sunday was a test of whether this Real Madrid team could win titles. “No,” he said. “Real Madrid win trophies with Mourinho.”
His Clásico record from his first spell is less emphatic than that answer. Between 2010-11 and 2012-13, Mourinho’s Madrid met Barcelona 17 times across LaLiga, the Copa del Rey, the Champions League and the Supercopa. They won five, drew six and lost six.
The first of those games is the one Barcelona fans still bring up, when Mourinho arrived at Camp Nou in November 2010 having made the best start of any Real Madrid coach in history, UEFA noted, and was unbeaten in his first 19 games. Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona won 5-0 and Mourinho called it the heaviest defeat of his career. It was also his first return to the stadium where he had worked as Bobby Robson’s translator in the 1990s.
The spring of 2011 brought four Clásicos in 18 days. Before the league meeting, Mourinho skipped the pre-match press conference and sent assistant Aitor Karanka in his place, prompting a walkout by some journalists. He did the same before the December 2011 Clásico, although this Saturday, he faced the room himself.
That April run produced his first win over Guardiola, 1-0 after extra time in the Copa del Rey final in Valencia, settled by a Cristiano Ronaldo header. A week later came the Champions League semi-final first leg at the Bernabéu. Madrid lost 2-0, Mourinho was sent to the stands. The low point arrived at the end of the Supercopa at Camp Nou in August 2011, when Mourinho poked Barcelona assistant Tito Vilanova in the eye during a touchline brawl. By January 2012, after a 2-2 Copa draw in Barcelona, he was claiming it was impossible to win there.
Three months later he did. Madrid won 2-1 at Camp Nou in April 2012, with Ronaldo scoring the winner. The result ended Barcelona’s run of 55 home games unbeaten and effectively secured Madrid’s first league title in four years. Mourinho finished his first spell unbeaten in his last five Clásicos, including a 3-1 Copa semi-final win at Camp Nou in February 2013.
That is the record he leaned on years later, when asked about his poor numbers against Guardiola. “I won the match for the title in Barcelona with Real Madrid,” he told reporters. Saturday’s answer about trophies came from the same place.
Mourinho played down any special significance in the venue. “It’s just like playing at a different stadium. We’re talking about a very strong side. But it’s no big deal.” He was happier talking about the fixture itself. “There are other important derbies in the world, but this is the one and only Clásico, the world comes to a standstill,” he said.
On Sunday, the world will stop to take in one of soccer’s greatest rivalries as Barcelona host Real Madrid at Spotify Camp Nou at 9pm local time (3pm ET) on Sunday, October 25.
This article was originally published on Forbes.com
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