José Mourinho says Real Madrid’s Champions League semi-final defeat to Bayern Munich on penalties in 2012 was the only time he cried after losing in football, with the Portuguese believing his title-winning side was the best on the continent at the time.
Real and Germans Bayern were locked at 3-3 on aggregate after Mourinho’s men had won 2-1 at the Bernabeu to cancel out their opponents’ first-leg advantage. Cristiano Ronaldo scored both goals for his team in the second meeting, but Ronaldo along with Sergio Ramos and Kaka surprisingly missed their penalties in the shootout.
Bayern went on to reach the final, but with Real having won La Liga with a remarkable 100 points and a record 121 goals scored, Mourinho feels his players deserved more. “Unfortunately, that’s football,” Mourinho told MARCA. “Cristiano, Kaka, Sergio Ramos... three complete monsters of football, there’s no doubt about that, but they’re also human.
“That season Madrid was the best team in Spain and also the best in Europe. That’s why it was so hard for us to take on the elimination against Bayern in the Champions League.
“That night is the only time in my career as a coach that I’ve cried after a defeat. I remember it well. Aitor [Karanka] and I pulled up in front of my house, in the car, crying. It was very hard because we were the best that season.”
“We made history”
Despite the heartache in Europe, the 2011-12 season remains one of Mourinho’s greatest, having overthrown Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona in an imperious league season. Mourinho was asked by MARCA if beating their arch enemies when Barca were at their peak represents one of his best achievements.
“It is very difficult for me to say if that was the highest point or not,” he replied. “But of course it was a very important moment because it occurred in a special period of Barcelona’s dominance.
“Ending that Barcelona domination and doing it also achieving a record of points and a record of goals like that made it even more interesting and more important, since we did it in the best possible way. It wasn’t just that we won the League, it’s that we did it in a way that made history.”
The highlight of the season for Madrid was beating Barcelona 2-1 at Camp Nou, which was decisive in the title win. Cristiano Ronaldo’s winner was a special moment for Los Merengues and Mourinho fondly remembers the psychology going into the showdown with their historical rivals. “They are good memories. We played against Barça in search of two results, because victory would have done us but so would a draw.
8 years ago today #onthisdayPA 2012 pic.twitter.com/cl237YMkCs
— S Gillen ?? Portuguese Abroad (@SeanGillen9) April 21, 2020
“We prepared well for that Camp Nou match. I repeated to my players constantly: “We are going to win this game, we are going to win it. The emotion and above all the pressure they have, they play at home, and we are going to 'kill' them in a transition. When they tied that is was what happened. In the end the emotion lost in favour of reason.
“[That season] we had a very defined identity. Defensively we were always very well organised on the field, and everyone knew perfectly what to do. There was a lot of discipline and a lot of organisation also behind that team’s game. And we were able to make very explosive transitions, very fast and direct to the target, always looking towards the goal with connections that were almost unstoppable.
“They were great players who played like a real team, in the end that was the key to everything.”
By Sean Gillen
