The Special One by Diego Torres

Author:Diego Torres
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-03-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Rebellion

‘What a worthless, burnt-out coward I’d be called if I would submit to you and all your orders.’

Homer, The Iliad, Book 1

One day during the 2010–11 season Madrid were staying in a hotel ahead of a match when some supporters gave Iker Casillas a photograph in which he was shown lifting the World Cup in Johannesburg. A team-mate came up to him to look at the image with admiration.

‘How cool …’

‘Six and a half kilos. It weighs six and a half kilos.’

Casillas mentioned the weight when talking about the solid-gold trophy that Silvio Gazzaniga had designed for FIFA and that he had held aloft as captain of the Spanish national team. Although, according to some, the weight of the trophy is eight kilos, the goalkeeper thought differently. For him it was six and a half kilos. When he remembered this moment, his team-mates saw how he got excited as only small boys and extremely happy men can. If there were two things that he felt deeply proud of, they were the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the 2008 European Championships in Austria and Switzerland. To have represented one of the greatest national football teams of all time filled him with total satisfaction. The team-mates who helped him to achieve it occupied a special place in his heart. Especially Xavi Hernández, who had been his accomplice in the national team since the time they were both teenagers.

Casillas was not picked by Mourinho to play the last game of the 2010–11 season against Almería at the Bernabéu on 21 May. Mourinho, seemingly content with Casillas’s work, had given him the day off. He was not in the dressing room when, after the referee blew the half-time whistle, his team-mates found Mourinho at his most challenging. They were winning 3–0, but, before they went back out on to the pitch and then went on their holidays, he wanted to send them off with a message that was both cryptic and threatening, according to certain witnesses:

‘Let’s be clear. You’re the first to know … I’m going to tell you the truth … Apart from the fact that we’ve lost the league because the titulares [first-team regulars] surrendered, the year has been fucking shit. A disaster. Why? Because of the titulares. Because they haven’t shown their faces. Between ourselves, let’s not kid anybody. The titulares haven’t been up to it. I’m sure that next year, with new recruits, we’re going to win everything.’

One player tells of a dressing room full of pent-up physical violence. Another thought that the absence of Casillas had encouraged the coach to come out and say things in a tone that he would not have been bold enough to have used if the captain had been present. Ronaldo tapped his boots insistently on the floor. Ramos looked disapprovingly at Mourinho. Albiol puffed out his cheeks and blew. But nobody opened their mouth to interrupt the boss. Mourinho finished his team-talk with a brief coda in which he attributed

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