The 5-0 at Camp Nou that set the tone for a fiercely tense rivalry

On 29 November 2010, on his first visit to Camp Nou as an away side, Madrid conceded a 5-0 defeat that, Marca writes, still stings at Concha Espina. The heavy loss opens the account of a rivalry that spilled beyond the pitch. Marca describes it as one of Spanish football’s most tense, from the opening rout to Mourinho’s gesture towards Tito Vilanova, and from the Portuguese’s repeated “why?” to Cristiano’s “calm”.

Between November 2010 and March 2013, José Mourinho and Barça met in 17 Clásicos. Those contests also played out in press conferences, UEFA offices and the imagination of two sets of supporters who, in Marca’s account, learned to dislike one another methodically. Mourinho faced Guardiola’s Barça, which the outlet calls one of the century’s best teams. The Portuguese had come not to admire it, but to bring it down.

A few months earlier, his Inter had eliminated Barça in a Champions League semi-final. After qualifying, the team celebrated under the sprinklers at Camp Nou. Now he was back at the head of the opposition.

The tension peaked in a run of four meetings in 18 days: in La Liga, the Copa final and the two legs of the Champions League semi-final. Madrid won the Copa at Mestalla with a Cristiano header in extra time, ending an 18-year drought. But the words soon took over. Before a Champions League match, Guardiola declared: “In this room, he is the fucking boss, the fucking master. Off the field, he has already beaten me. I don’t want to compete, not for a single moment.”

After a 0-2 defeat at the Bernabéu, where Pepe was sent off and Mourinho was sent to the stands, Mourinho repeated “Why? Why? Why?” and then accused Guardiola of winning a Champions League he would have been ashamed to win. UEFA handed Mourinho a five-match sanction. Barça went on to reach Wembley and lift the Champions League trophy. Marca considers the Clásico of 21 April 2012 the most important of those three years: Cristiano scored at Camp Nou after a pass from Ozil, then called for calm. The 1-2 helped Madrid claim the only La Liga title it took from that Barça, a 100-point campaign that ended the Catalan side’s dominance, according to Marca. Six days later, an exhausted Guardiola announced he was leaving.