Real Madrid. Top of La Liga. In the second round of the Champions League. In the latter stages of the Copa del Ray. All for what? The crowd are not happy and the white flags are waving not in support but in defiance. Why? Because Real Madrid keep losing to Barcelona. The fans are not stupid, they know that even Real Madrid win La Liga it will most likely be a pyrrhic victory, with Barcelona recognised as the best team in the country who just so happened to not win La Liga.
It will all be different if Real Madrid manage to go to the Nou Camp and beat Barcelona and win the league from that position. The likelihood of that happening is minimal. Barcelona play with Real Madrid like a kitten with a ball of string. Real Madrid win countless games in succession, play exceptional football, earn all the plaudits, and then they meet their main rivals and lose against such a superior and convincing Barcelona team that all their previous results appear hollow and inauthentic. The Real Madrid fans, absolutely conscious of this, are so collectively humiliated by the defeats that they have begun jeering their own. First it was Cristiano Ronaldo, now it is Jose Mourinho.
Originally it was Cristiano Ronaldo because the suspicion was that the Portuguese wonder was a flat track bully. Capable of scoring four, for example, against the lesser lights but incapable of matching his nemesis Lionel Messi in the big matches when it really mattered. Then Cristiano Ronaldo did score in the El Classico just passed and Real Madrid still lost. This time the blame was on Pepe and, more pertinently, the manager Jose Mourinho. Why? Because of his tactics. He had ceded possession willingly, something not representative of the Real Madrid ethos, and had set his team up in a negative fashion not becoming of an institution like Real Madrid. In the eyes of the fans the means do not justify the ends even if the result is forthcoming. Playing such dour football against their biggest rivals and winning 1-0 is not enough. Real Madrid demand more. Catenaccio is not their style. Playing such tepid football and still losing is just unfathomable. It is a betrayal of the club’s identity and a meaningless one at that.
The fans are not happy and their anger is directed at the coach. He has to grin it, bear it, and see it through. Real Madrid might yet turn things around in the second lef of the Copa del Ray clash with Barcelona (the team trail 2-1), they might yet win La Liga (they lead Barcelona by 5 points) and they might yet win the Champions League but for each one of these things that don’t happen, and Barcelona stand in their way in each of them, it will merely be another stick to beat Jose Mourinho with.