Madrid: Attacking midfielder Lucas Moura, who next month will move from Sao Paulo to French outfit Paris Saint-Germain in a multi-million dollar deal, is the reason behind a major rift at Spanish football club Real Madrid, according to the Spanish media.
Sports daily Marca reported that Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho had identified the Brazilian international as his top transfer target last summer, only for the player to opt for France whilst Real signed Luka Modric instead.
Florentino Perez, president of the Spanish club, allegedly regarded Sao Paulo’s asking price of €43 million (Dh208 million) too steep for an unproven talent and refused to grant Mourinho the cash to buy the Selecao star. Modric arrived for around €30 million from English club Tottenham Hotspur, reports Xinhua.
Perez’s failure to back his coach in the transfer market has led to a rift between the two, which has since spread to members of the playing staff and subsequently results on the pitch.
With the Spanish championship now on its winter break, defending champions Real Madrid lie 16 points behind runaway leaders Barcelona.
Having missed out on Lucas, one name currently being linked with the Spanish giants is Atletico Mineiro playmaker Bernard.
Meanwhile, Real Madrid captain Iker Casillas vowed on Sunday to prove Jose Mourinho was wrong to drop him from the Real Madrid starting line-up for the first time in 10 years.
World Cup winner Casillas was benched for Saturday’s 3-2 defeat at Malaga with 25-year-old understudy Antonio Adan stepping into the breach.
“I’m not used to being a backup, but above all I am a team player. The thing to do is to keep training and try to regain my place,” Casillas told La Sexta television.
“Mourinho didn’t say anything during the week, but we abide by the decision of the coach. I am feeling good, but the one who decides is the coach and I have to keep training to regain his confidence. We have a healthy competition for all the places.”
Mourinho, whose champions are 16 points behind leaders Barcelona, continued to insist on Sunday that he had been right to drop Casillas.
“I have a clear conscience. I try to have the best team for each match,” said the coach on arriving in Lisbon where he will spend the Christmas vacation.
But, while Mourinho was unapologetic and insisted after the defeat he was not going anywhere, the press, never on good terms with the Portuguese coach, bayed for blood.
“‘Mou’ is making a laughing stock of himself,” opined Madrid sports daily Marca while displaying on its front page a photo of Casillas with his head bowed during the match.
“Another act of defiance by the coach, this time against the saint of saints of the club.”
Another sports daily As, who like Marca slated Casillas’s replacement Antonio Adan for Malaga’s third goal, was even less forgiving.
“Mourinho has become an unsupportable problem,” it blasted.
Another of the club’s discontented stars, Sergio Ramos — like Casillas part of the Spain side that has collected two European Championships and the World Cup in the past four years — weighed in on Canal Plus Spain.
“We were all taken aback by the dropping of Casillas, I mean he is the captain,” said the defender, who himself fell foul of Mourinho earlier in the season and was dropped and trained on his own.
“It is him who plays and he will continue to play because he is a truly great goalkeeper.”
Mourinho, who is used to winning his internal battles and only coming off second best when he took on Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, has, according to some, overreached himself this time.
Despite succeeding in having long-time Real sporting director Jorge Valdano sacked, his combative nature since he took over in May 2010 has rarely targeted the players until this season.
However, since January he has been at war with both Ramos and Casillas and he had to deny last week that he was deploying one of his backroom staff as a spy to report back to him what the players were saying.
While the Barcelona daily Mundo Deportivo agreed that Casillas’s poor form this season had been a cause for concern, it added Mourinho’s decision was not solely based on sporting reasons.
“He (Mourinho) was right, but it is also a political decision.
“Mou was not just relegating to the bench one of the best goalkeepers in the world or the team captain, but also the ringleader of the malcontents in the dressing room.”
While Mourinho has received the support of club president Florentino Perez, although he didn’t appreciate Mourinho admitting defeat in the title race even before the Malaga match, Spanish news daily El Mundo said Perez was considering all options with regard to the coach.
However, the club may find the financial compensation prohibitive as Mourinho extended his contract last May to 2016 after adding the Liga crown to the Spanish Cup he won in his first season.
“If Florentino sacks Mou now, he will have to pay him compensation of £20 million and only five million euros if he does it next June,” revealed Mundo Deportivo.
However, in a poll conducted by the Marca website of Real fans, it was crystal clear what they wanted the outcome to be with 80 per cent of the 80,000 respondents saying yes to the question “Should Real sack Mourinho?”.
