a few days ago Marcelo spoke on the podcast Iker Casillas about how difficult it was for Real Madrid to face Guardiola and Luis Enrique’s Barça. For any merengue fan they were difficult times and little by little, with time and distance, testimonies have emerged of how those who were inside the locker room lived those years.
That is why it is worth remembering an interview in which Angel Di María spoke loud and clear about what happened in those years of strain constant between Mourinho’s Madrid and Guardiola’s Barça; a rivalry that centered the news of world football, since it affected the clubs and also the spanish national teamwhich at that time dominated international tournaments with an iron fist.
Di María remembered it honestly in a talk with Juan Pablo Varsky: “In the national team it seemed that they were all friends and would go against anyone, but when they played against each other they would kick each other. It was one of the things that Mourinho had implemented in the heads of the Madrid players; The only way to beat Barça was to hitscoring and running more than them. Because at that moment you shouldn’t lie, it was obvious, they gave you a terrible ride like they did to us at 5-0. There was never a game in my life in which I didn’t see the ball. “It was trying to press and the ball was no longer there.”
As a result of that match, as Di María explains, the tactics changed: “From that match we realized that it was a different way (to try to win). And that way led to them shitting themselves on the field. At times I was afraid that Messi would be injured. “The Mestalla final was kicks and kicks.”
After these words from the former Real Madrid player, it is better to understand the aggressiveness shown by players like Ramos, Pepe o the blackboard both in the final of the King’s Cup of Mestalla that Madrid ended up taking as in the following three matches they had in just 20 days.
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