When Jose Mourinho arrived at Real Madrid, the general consensus was that a perfect match had been achieved. For those inside the Bernabeu, it was a union of the world's preeminent coach and Europe's most successful club. For everybody else, it was an unholy alliance of the most divisive man in the business and the team that eight out of 10 Spaniards love to hate.
Mourinho is a brilliant leader of men and a wily tactician, as his numerous successes across the continent have proved. But the Portuguese has a modus operandi that often leaves his peers' noses firmly out of joint. He is a master of what is sometimes incongruously termed "mind games."
Sir Alex Ferguson, the university professor to Mourinho's prodigious student, can turn a referee's watch back merely with the power of his frosty stare. Few in the game would voluntarily cross the belligerent Scot, but Mourinho met the Premier League's doyen head-on on several occasions, including the 2005 Carling Cup semifinal when the then Chelsea coach accused Ferguson of trying to influence the match referee at halftime.
It was not the only time Mourinho would employ the tactic during that season. In the Champions League round of 16 match against Barcelona, Mourinho tried to frame Frank Rijkaard for approaching referee Anders Frisk at halftime. It later transpired that the only whistle-blowing taking place at Camp Nou that evening was on the field, but it did not prevent Frisk from receiving death threats after Chelsea lost the match 2-1.
That Mourinho apparently snuck into Stamford Bridge during the two-match touchline ban he incurred, delivered the prematch and halftime team talks and was then spirited from the stadium in a laundry basket only adds color to the undeniable aura that surrounds him. Frisk, though, never refereed again and for every schoolboy prank the Portuguese pulls, there is an equally serious breaking of the sport's rules, written or otherwise.
It is all part of Mourinho's carefully crafted siege mentality, where his players are free to play and the Portuguese invites all the ire he can provoke. Or maybe he just enjoys the pantomime.
Under the unforgiving glare of the overzealous Spanish media, however, Mourinho has cut an increasingly irritable figure. Interrogations over the states of Pedro Leon and Karim Benzema have been met with withering reply. And Mourinho's Barcelona-based barbs have ruffled feathers at Camp Nou in recent weeks.
It took a King's Cup match against third-division Murcia and what could be charitably described as an inconsistent performance from referee Paradas Romero for the Portuguese to finally snap. Inviting Romero to remove himself from sight with a fruity Spanish colloquialism, Mourinho was subsequently sent off for the first time in La Liga. He watched the remainder of the match from the stands, the television cameras making a point to linger on his thunderous expression as Real coasted to a 5-1 win.
The Murcia incident was, however, the first drop of rain before the storm. In the lead up to last weekend's match away at Sporting Gijon, Mourinho crossed the line of professional decency by accusing Manuel Preciado -- the avuncular coach of the team from Spain's northern coast and like Mourinho an object of great loyalty from his players -- of effectively throwing a match earlier in the season against Real's archrival Barcelona.
Preciado responded by calling Mourinho "a swine and a bad professional" and pointed to the inalienable right of every coach to pick whichever team he sees fit. And Preciado is absolutely correct.
The weight of justice on Preciado's side did not prevent Real from eking out a 1-0 victory in El Molinon. It also didn't stop the Sporting coach, upon seeing the Real team bus in the stadium's parking lot, from grabbing his crotch in a time-honored gesture of provocation and aiming a bottle at the vehicle.
Inside the bus, Mourinho simply raised two fingers in what could have been a victory sign, or a prediction of where Sporting's season might end up, the second division. In any case, his work done, Mourinho made for Madrid leaving yet another Spanish team fuming at his antics.
"We didn't sign Mourinho to make friends," Real's sporting director, Emilio Butragueno, told reporters on Monday.
That is probably just as well. Mourinho's legend at Madrid is growing as swiftly as his litany of misconduct. Still unbeaten in all competitions, he will be ramping up his rhetoric ahead of Real's next visit to the north, for the Clasico against Barcelona.