Jose Mourinho has long since departed Real Madrid with the Portuguese having enjoyed a modicum of success at Chelsea and Manchester United, whilst now cultivating something potentially special at Tottenham.
There’s certainly no doubting his ability to get the maximum out of his group of players, equally, as a number of his players will attest, he has a habit of falling out with senior members of the group.
For Paul Pogba at Man United, read Iker Casillas at Real Madrid.
The Spanish World Cup winning captain had a famous falling out with his manager, which eventually led to his transfer to Porto, and now he’s opened up on what exactly went on between him and the Special One.
“We said a couple of things that neither of us liked and took badly but it was left there. Then came the Super Cup,” Casillas said on the Colgar las Alas documentary on Spanish TV station Movistar+, cited by the Daily Mail.
“We gave a terrible impression. There were scraps, battles, giving your heart and soul… but the other things (poking Vilanova’s eye) – that was the kind of thing you might see at other clubs – tacky clubs, who need to resort to that sort of thing, and that is not for us.
“We played Levante, a game in which we fell further behind to Barcelona. That was the moment when we stopped talking. We were alone together in a room and he starts telling me that I should be more open and honest.
“I told him that I didn’t think it was right for a professional to poke another coach in the eye. Someone from the press department at the club grabbed us and told us to calm down, to talk it through. We sat down again and said what we had to say face to face.”
A clash of egos is never going to end well, particularly at a club like Real Madrid.
However, there are unlikely to be too many people arguing against Casillas’ assertion that such behaviour is beneath Los Blancos, one of the most storied and successful clubs in world football.