Catalan article lashes Real Madrid: a giant turned into a beggar who can do nothing but scream!
Scathing attack from "Sport": Real Madrid talk a lot and play less football
Catalan newspaper "Sport" has opened fire on Real Madrid and their president Florentino Perez in an opinion piece, seizing on the controversy swirling around the club in recent times. The backdrop is an escalating dispute with Javier Tebas, the president of the Spanish league, as well as the comments of Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho about the timing of the announcement of Vinicius Junior's suspension before the meeting with Roma in the Champions League.
Mourinho had objected to the announcement of Vinicius's suspension just two hours before kick-off, considering that the timing of the disclosure of the punishment raises question marks about its effect on the player's concentration, at a time when the war of words between Real Madrid and the Liga continues.
That atmosphere gave Spanish journalist Hugo Scocia his starting point for a sarcastic and sharp reading of what he sees as a shift in the image of the Madrid club. He criticised what he described as a reliance on noise, statements and promotional clips instead of focusing on performances on the pitch, and he aimed a few blows at Perez and his gamble on Mourinho in managing the current period.
His article carried the headline: Florentino Perez and Mourinho: the art of shouting a lot without producing any football. Scocia did not limit himself to criticising the club's media discourse. He also revisited what happened in the match against Roma, considering that the Italian side imposed their superiority for long periods, before attention turned once again to the controversy surrounding Real Madrid instead of talk about football.
Here is the text of the article:
"I wanted to write about Barcelona's beautiful performance, or perhaps about a wonderful video of Messi's goals that almost went in, which I found on social media. I did not want to fall again into the same trap I have fallen into in recent weeks. But the absurd, laughable spectacle we witnessed 600 kilometres from Barcelona really does deserve thousands of words. I know, dear reader, that it may look like an obsession, but in truth it is just entertainment and fun.
Real Madrid are that noble giant who turns into a ragged beggar. Or, as the great Italian writer Gianni Brera would have described them: "a nobleman fallen from his heights". After dozens of statements, matches devoid of football, and hundreds of comical promotional clips broadcast by the club's official channel, we can state with full confidence that Florentino Perez signed Jose Mourinho to blow up everything around him. When ideas are absent, and a man is living out the end of his era, all that is left to him is to hope that the noise will be loud enough to stop others from seeing the fall into the abyss. But this method of camouflage has become so exposed and so vulgar that it is impossible to hide the truth with it. The trick may work the first time, but repeating it twice risks you being found out. And I think we have all worked it out by this stage.
Let us talk about football. In Real Madrid's last European match, and regardless of the result and Real Madrid's customary comeback, Roma were completely superior to them for 80 minutes. It was a footballing stroll that ended, as things end in Italy, in tragedy for the hosts. And since Mourinho knows perfectly well the reality of what is going on, he moved early, showing off his ability to get ahead of events, and came out minutes before kick-off to condemn what he described as a continuous attack to which Real Madrid are being subjected once again.
The announcement of a player's suspension minutes before kick-off was a Machiavellian plan whose aim was to break the concentration of the team's leading star. One among all those many stars! What a lack of faith in them, if he believes that a professional player cannot handle a punishment that had already been announced! But, with the help of the substitutes, who appear more ready to compete than those who dominate the team thanks to their wages rather than their merit, he kept this victim card to use on another occasion.
Florentino has no more ideas than his players have on the pitch. That is why he gambled everything on the Portuguese coach, who has mastered the art of shouting a lot in order to hide various shortcomings. As for Florentino Perez, who I doubt will complete his current term, he cares more about the videos produced by his television channel than about his team's performance. Over there, a lot of noise, a lot of statements and little football. Over here, just entertainment and fun.
