A new documentary about Jose Mourinho's career has shed light on the turbulent period he spent at Real Madrid, during which his relationship with club captain Iker Casillas and star player Cristiano Ronaldo reportedly deteriorated.
Mourinho, who returned to Real Madrid in a coaching capacity 13 years after his initial stint, clashed with several senior players, including Casillas, over the course of his three-year tenure.
In the documentary "Mourinho," released earlier this week, Casillas recounted initial conversations with the manager. "Mentally, they were in a very bad place," Mourinho said of the squad, according to Casillas. The goalkeeper stated that his early requests to Mourinho included asking for more vacation time for national team players and delaying training sessions due to traffic.
"In the second conversation, he asked me to delay training by an hour because there was a lot of traffic in Madrid at the time I wanted to start the session," Casillas recalled. "In the third, he told me they didn't want to go to the hotel, that they preferred to see each other on match day and go directly to the stadium." Mourinho's response to these requests was that he realized the players were "being spoiled."
The rift between Mourinho and Casillas deepened, with a notable flashpoint occurring when Casillas contacted Xavi to help ease tensions between Spanish players at Real Madrid and Barcelona. This intervention came during a period of intense rivalry between the two clubs, fueled by the managerial competition between Mourinho and Pep Guardiola.
"This is a Barcelona-Real Madrid match," Mourinho is quoted as saying in the documentary. "When you're with the national team, you can kiss each other twice, but not now. This is war. There are things I don't accept and never will. When someone doesn't respect me, it becomes a problem."
Casillas explained his actions: "That situation was complicated because you were captain of Real Madrid and captain of the Spanish national team. You were facing team-mates who were your enemies on the football field, but then they were your team-mates on the national team. I didn't like seeing that and I told the manager."
Former Real Madrid midfielder Sami Khedira also commented on the deteriorating atmosphere. "Iker was a Real Madrid legend, beloved by the fans. Mourinho benched him and wouldn't speak to him, spoke ill of him in the media... the dressing room became a hellhole," Khedira stated.
Khedira added that this conflict extended to other key players. "After that, the relationship between Jose and many players, like Cristiano Ronaldo and the Spanish players, broke down. And those players were very important to the atmosphere in the dressing room, which became poisoned." Mourinho later harbored suspicions that Casillas was a dressing room informant, allegedly leaking tactical information and team secrets to the media.
Reflecting on the end of his first tenure, Mourinho expressed a sense of mutual exhaustion. "I think the players had grown tired of me as a leader, and I of them too," he said. "I was fed up with them as well, not just them with me. I was fed up with the players and the press. I wanted to leave. I felt I was finished."