What’s “I’ll dig the head off ya,” in Portugese?
Jose Mourinho made very few friends during his time as Real Madrid manager, having turned many of the big-name players against him in the latter stages of his spell at the Bernabeu.
And the player with perhaps the biggest name of all at Real, Cristiano Ronaldo, was one such member of that group.
The fractious relationship between the Portuguese pair came to boiling point after the Copa del Rey quarter-final first leg in January 2013.
In Ronaldo’s new biography, Guillem Balague outlined how teammates had to hold Ronaldo back from coming to blows with his then-manager after the game, the latter stages of which saw Mourinho urge his superstar forward to track back to defend a 2-0 lead.
Serialised in The Daily Telegraph, Balague writes:
Mourinho, whose blood was no longer boiling by the time he reached the dressing room, reminded Cristiano of the reason for the instruction on the pitch: “If they get a goal against us…”
The player, unable to contain his fury, got up from the bench where he was changing and began shouting, “After everything I’ve done for you, this is how you treat me! How dare you say that to me?!”
The dressing room turned deadly silent. Mourinho tried to remain calm. “I was saying it for the team, because the team needed you to track back.”
As he could see Cristiano had no intention of calming down, he gradually retreated. Soon after, he approached the forward again to resume the conversation with less tension. But Ronaldo fired back angrily. Mourinho was unable to contain himself any longer.
“Just so you know,’ he shouted for everybody to hear, “many think like me here, but don’t dare say it, they don’t have the balls to tell you.”
Many of the players who witnessed the scene had demanded that Mourinho, either directly or through the coaching staff, ask Ronaldo to defend more. The situation escalated to the point where Cristiano had to be held back (some sources say by Casillas, others say by Arbeloa and Khedira, or even Sergio Ramos) to prevent the pair from coming to blows.
Ronaldo took what should have been understood as a tactical comment as a personal attack. The relationship between Mourinho and Ronaldo would never be the same again.
