Jose Mourinho's Barcelona years: When Real Madrid's manager was loved at the Camp Nou New York Times (Online) Dermot Corrigan “Today, tomorrow, and forever, with Barca in my heart.” A fresh-faced assistant coach takes the microphone as Barcelona celebrate their Copa del Rey title of 1997, standing above a sea of supporters on a balcony at the Palace of the Generalitat of Catalonia in the city's historic centre. Many viewers might do a double take when watching the footage back now. The 34-year-old speaker, who went on to promise more success in the next season's Champions League, drawing huge cheers from the crowd below, is Jose Mourinho. The images are striking, given the bitter battles he would go on to have with Barcelona at Chelsea, Inter Milan and their Clasico rivals Real Madrid, where he arrived for a second spell as manager in June, now aged 63. Yet near the start of his career, Mourinho spent four seasons at the Camp Nou, a period that undoubtedly marked him as a coach and a person. “I was very lucky to work at Barcelona,” Mourinho says in a Netflix documentary covering his career that was released in August. “The best players in the world demand quality work. For a young guy it's a big challenge. I was working a lot for them, but I was also getting a lot from them.” You often hear that Mourinho joined Barcelona as then-manager Sir Bobby Robson's translator. That is not the case. Before they arrived at the club in the summer of 1996, Mourinho had already proven himself as a trusted and valued member of Robson's coaching staff during four years working together in Portugal, first at Sporting CP and then Porto. “The translator job is a big bulls***,” Mourinho says in the Netflix documentary. “I was goalkeeper coach, analyst, scout, helping in the gym. I was doing everything for the boss, everything for the team.” Mourinho did translate for Robson during some early press conferences at Barca, until the club hierarchy realised his answers in Spanish were often somewhat different to what Robson had said in English. While Robson, who was 63 when he arrived at Barca, preferred a low profile, Mourinho was a much more public figure than most assistants. He did a series of local media interviews outlining plans for the team, and spoke live on Spanish TV before Barca's first game of the 1996-97 campaign. “Jose was young, smart, ambitious to make a career in football,” says a Barcelona source familiar with that time, speaking anonymously, like many of those approached for this story, to protect relationships. “But he was a friendly guy, who got on well with other club staff.” Barca's team included Spain internationals Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique, Bulgarian striker Hristo Stoichkov, Portugal star Luis Figo and new Brazilian signing Ronaldo Nazario. Also in the squad was midfielder Oscar Garcia, later head coach at Brighton and Watford, now at Polish club Pogon Szczecin. “Mourinho's role was as Bobby Robson's assistant,” Garcia says. “We had the impression that he was very clever, very well prepared. You could see that since he was a kid he had lived in the world of football.” Mourinho was a visible presence on the bench during games, clashing occasionally with referees and opposition coaches, including one famous altercation with Athletic Club manager Luis Fernandez when Barca lost 2-1 there in November 1996. “Despite being young, he understood all the extra psychological things around a team and a football match,” adds that same Barca source. “He had an instinct for all the games that are played out in parallel to what happens on the pitch.” Although that fixture in Bilbao was Barca's only defeat in their first 14 La Liga games, many pundits and supporters were still lamenting the previous summer's exit of legendary coach Johan Cruyff. “Cruyff's departure led to a civil war within Barcelonismo,” says the Barca source. “Mourinho was a firm backer of Robson's more direct, physical style of play. There was lots of tension. Both Robson and Mourinho suffered a lot.” Some in the media used the 'translator' moniker as a barb to provoke Mourinho, who was seen as easily upset. Club president Josep Nunez also enjoyed using it to wind him up. “People did not take Jose seriously, they belittled him, and he really did not enjoy that,” says another source who was close to the club at that time. Although Barca ended the season winning the Copa del Rey, Supercopa de Espana and the Cup Winners' Cup, they lost a narrow La Liga title race to Real Madrid. Nunez reacted by shifting Robson into a short-lived consultancy role, replacing him on the bench with Ajax boss Louis van Gaal, who was seen as a closer disciple of Cruyff's style. Most around the Camp Nou assumed Mourinho would also leave, including some of the incoming coaching team. “Jose was very pissed that they replaced Mr Robson, and he showed his emotions,” says Frans Hoek, who joined Barca in that summer of 1997 as a goalkeeping coach. However, after clear-the-air chats with Van Gaal, Mourinho stayed. His job now involved scouting future opponents, and analysing Barca's performance during games. “I was in touch with Jose in the stands by phone,” says Hoek. “He'd say: 'Hey, the space is on the right side.' From the beginning, his very good capacity for analysing matches and opponents stood out.” Garcia says that it stood out how quickly Mourinho picked up the ideas Van Gaal and his staff wanted to implement in the Barca squad. “Jose was like a sponge,” he says. “Within the first few weeks as Van Gaal's assistant he had learned all the concepts. It already seemed like he had worked within Ajax's philosophy for years.” Hoek says the Portuguese “was very open to learning” and impressed his Dutch colleagues by questioning their ideas and putting forward his own. “Bobby Robson was a fantastic manager of people,” he says. “ Louis was more the teacher type, the content of the game, structures of play. Louis (also) liked people to challenge him and say, 'Maybe we should try it this way,' or, 'You're wrong'.” Meanwhile, Mourinho gained more experience of Barca's coaching philosophy while working closely with promising youngsters from their La Masia youth academy. “Mourinho helped us young players a lot,” ex-Barca midfielder and coach Xavi says in Take the Ball, Pass the Ball. The documentary is about Guardiola's four years as Barca boss between 2008 and 2012, but Xavi was looking back further, to his start at the club. He came through the ranks to make his first team debut in 1998. “Van Gaal sometimes sent him to take reserve team sessions,” Xavi adds. “Rondos, keeping the ball, possession, positional play — we worked on all of that with Mourinho.” Van Gaal also allowed Mourinho to take charge of certain first-team matches, including pre-season and Copa de Catalunya friendly fixtures. “(Jose) did all the game-day coaching, before, during, half time, and the evaluation after,” Hoek says. “He was a very natural leader, making clear what he wanted, what he saw, what could be improved. That really stood out.” Even as Mourinho was clearly progressing professionally, he still felt disrespected by some. “I don't feel valued from outside, but I am by Van Gaal,” he told Mundo Deportivo in February 1998. “From day one he appreciated my work.” Mourinho did build relationships with senior players close to his age, such as Guardiola and Luis Enrique, which Van Gaal found useful. “It was interesting to see Jose's extremely close connection with the players,” Hoek says. “As an assistant, you need to build a relationship with players so they trust you. On the other side, you need to know what you can bring to the head coach. Jose knew very well how to deal with that, to benefit the team.” Over time, Mourinho took on a more and more prominent role. Often sitting beside Van Gaal on the bench, the tracksuit of his early days was replaced by a suit and tie. Barca won two La Liga titles, a Copa del Rey and a Supercopa de Europa in the first two seasons under Van Gaal, but the Dutchman left after a trophyless 1999-2000 campaign. While Mourinho still had a year left on his contract, his time at the Camp Nou had also run its course. Mourinho's years in Catalonia were both a professional education and an emotional rollercoaster. While settling in during autumn 1996, his wife's mother died, he lost his sister, and his first daughter Matilde was born. “It was an incredibly hard period, but I was doing everything to (show I) deserve(d) to be at that level,” Mourinho said in this summer's Netflix documentary. “This was my life, to fight for my career.” Living in Sitges, about 40 minutes' drive down the coast from Barcelona, the Mourinho family made close connections with many locals. “I had the feeling he loved where he lived, really felt at home, really felt one of them,” says Hoek. In February 2005, Mourinho returned to the Camp Nou for the first time as a manager. After his Chelsea team were beaten 2-1 in the first leg of a Champions League last 16 tie, he alleged referee Anders Frisk was influenced by a half-time meeting with then-Barca coach Frank Rijkaard. Rijkaard and UEFA denied any inappropriate contact, but Frisk received death threats and retired from refereeing the following month. “I'd do it again,” Mourinho says in the Netflix documentary. “Anything to help your team to get results.” Despite such controversies, Mourinho maintained his relationships with former Barca colleagues. In early 2008, when he was out of work after leaving Chelsea, and with Rijkaard's time as Barca coach coming to an end, he met with then-Barca directors Marc Ingla and Txiki Begiristain in Portugal. Mourinho impressed them with a detailed presentation outlining recommended changes for the team and club. However, Barca president Joan Laporta decided instead to take Cruyff's advice and replace Rijkaard with Guardiola, whose only coaching experience at that point had been one season in charge of the reserves. “It was tough, as some on the board made a strong argument to appoint Mourinho,” Laporta says in the 2018 documentary Take the Ball, Pass the Ball. Mourinho has always denied lobbying for the Barca job. “Someone high up in the club asked for an analysis of the club's situation, in a bad moment, a moment of change, and I did it,” he says in the 2022 Movistar programme Mourinho at Barca. “But nothing more.” Some around the Camp Nou believed Mourinho felt snubbed. “Not being hired in 2008 is fundamental to understanding Mourinho's relationship with Barcelona,” says a source close to a former director. “His relationship changed abruptly from love to a visceral hate.” Two years later, Mourinho's Inter eliminated Guardiola's Barca from the 2009-10 Champions League semi-finals, despite playing over an hour of the second leg at the Camp Nou with 10 men. Mourinho's first spell as Real Madrid coach from 2010 to 2013 then saw his teams eventually work out how to physically and tactically neutralise Barca's previously all-conquering side featuring Xavi, Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta. The worst moment for many during those dramatic and tense years was when Mourinho poked then-Barca assistant coach Tito Vilanova in the eye on the touchline during a Supercopa de Espana game at the Camp Nou in August 2011. He received a two-match ban. “Even when he was Madrid coach, we would always say hello, we'd chat, all correct,” says a Barca source. “But then what happened with Tito was lamentable, he crossed the line.” Multiple sources at the Camp Nou during Mourinho's time there say their personal connections with him have been friendly since he left Madrid in 2013. For instance, there were amicable conversations when his Manchester United team played Barcelona in a July 2017 pre-season friendly in the United States. Hoek is intrigued by the 63-year-old's return to Madrid, having spent the years since his 2018 exit from Old Trafford at Tottenham, Roma, Fenerbahce and Benfica. “Madrid is a beautiful challenge again, you know, after his struggles,” Hoek says. “Knowing Jose, the kind of person he is, I've the feeling that he really wants to show the world at least once more that he can do it. And that's fantastic fuel for the energy you need in that job.”