Jerzy Dudek, of all people, has revealed dressing room secrets from Jose Mourinho’s time at Real Madrid.
The Polish keeper, who only actually made two La Liga appearances for Los Blancos, and really needed this angle to sell what would have been an otherwise forgettable book, reveals that Mourinho went on the hunt for a dressing room ‘rat’.
In truth, we already knew much of this from Diego Torres’ book ‘Prepare To Lose’, but Dudek does reveal some fresh insight.
Firstly, that the word used was ‘rat’, and not ‘mole’ as Torres claimed in his book.
Second, unlike Torres, who claimed the accusation by Mourinho was made generally to all players, Dudek reveals that Mourinho did in fact single out on player first of all:
Esteban Granero.
Mourinho reasoned that Granero was a suspect as he was a player who had been there a long time, and that having come through the youth ranks, he would have some loyalty to the media.
Iker Casillas was the player many Real Madrid fans believe to this day to have been the ‘rat/mole’, but to this day the identity of the mystery media filter remains unknown…
”Two years ago I read that Spanish press was looking for a “rat” in Real dressing room. It immediately took me back to the match against Barcelona in 2011 that we drew 1-1 at Santiago Bernabeu. Mourinho came to the dressing room and said that the result was not bad. Indeed as for almost entire second half we played in 10 after Albiol’s red card.
And then he added:
“I see your reliations with media are quite good. I know we have to get along with them but I didn’t think you were getting along that well. I heard from them that you do not want the meetings before the games, that we practice set-pieces wrong way and our tactical trainings are not good enough. I turn on my TV 4 hours before the game and what the fuck do I see? That the journo is giving away our squad.”
He started shouting:
“How could we ever surprise them if one of you is a rat!!! Yes, yes a rat! Somebody released the info about the starting XI before the game. They knew everything about us. We trained all week. We wanted to surprise them. We wanted to make some changes. We put Pepe in midfield to play against Messi and we talked about it… That Pepe knows how to deal with him. He knows when to let him go so he’s not the danger for us when he has the ball and makes the difference and we start panicing. That’s why Pepe had to play in midfield, right? Right. And everything was perfect. Why could it not work out?”
Nobody said anything. But Mou started shouting again:
“I always go ahead of you, in the first line. I control everything that happens. Like a general, I always go into fire for you. We were about to attack them when somebody stabbed me in the back. One of you sticks a knife in my back before the game that is so important for us?”
He had tears in his eyes. I had never seen him in such state, so emotional.
And he still shouted.
“Where is this rat? Who is it? Who could it be? Maybe you…”
He pointed at Esteban Granero, who was born in Madrid. He explained:
“It may be somebody who plays here for a long time.”
He pointed at three or four other guys and asked:
“How can you destroy what we’ve been working for for all week? You screwed me over. But you screwed themselves too. Your families and friends. I will get to the fucking source. Though I don’t know if it will be needed now. I am fucking sick and tired of you.”
He threw a plastic bottle against the wall, slammed the door and left.
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