THE build-up to this week's Copa del Rey and La Liga Clasicos has been quite low key, which is both an advantage and a potential problem for Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde and his Real Madrid counterpart Santi Solari.
Things are quite different now than that in 2011, when Pep Guardiola’s Barca and Jose Mourinho’s Madrid went head to head four times in just 18 days across La Liga, Copa and Champions League.
For many, the most memorable moment of that ‘storm of Clasicos’ took place not on the pitch, but in the Bernabeu press room, on the eve of the UCL semi-final first leg. That evening’s first question to the visiting coach unsurprisingly concerned the latest controversial comments from Mourinho.
“Off the pitch, Jose has won all year,” Guardiola replied, looking like he really, really wanted to get something off his chest. “I cannot compete. In this room, he is the puto jefe, the puto amo [the fucking chief, the fucking boss]. And I don’t want to compete with him for even a second.”
It was a Hollywood moment which drew the attention of pretty much everyone in Spain – football fans or not – as well as ensuring an even bigger global audience for the following day’s game. For better or worse Guardiola and Mourinho took as many, if not more headlines than even their team's star players Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
24 hours later Barca won 2-0, a huge step towards that ‘Pep team’ winning a second Champions League title in three years. The following season was more a triumph for ‘Mou’ – as Madrid won the LaLiga title with a record-breaking number of points and goals.
Since then both teams’ successes have tended to come under similarly big personalities. Luis Enrique is another combustible character who enjoyed the spotlight, a previous leader on the pitch who enjoyed public jousting with the local press. ‘Lucho’ also clashed with Messi and tiki-taka talisman Xavi Hernandez, but still matched his former Barca teammate’s achievement by claiming another treble in 2014/15.
Zinedine Zidane is a very different character than Mourinho, with the two not seeing eye to eye during their time at the Bernabeu. But Zidane’s own form of understated but charismatic leadership saw Madrid win the last three Champions League titles, with the big egoes like Ronaldo and Sergio Ramos persuaded to pull together under the former Ballon D’Or and World Cup winner.
This week’s ‘Clasico’ coaches are cut from a different cloth. Ernesto Valverde and Santiago Solari represented Barca and Madrid respectively as solid, dependable squad members rather than key first teamers.
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Neither were seen as likely future managers at either the Camp Nou or the Bernabeu, and both ended up in their current jobs almost by default due to a lack of any available bigger name candidates.
Valverde was passed over for the Barca job at least once, while impressing at lower level clubs including Athletic Bilbao, Espanyol and Valencia, before eventually being appointed in summer 2017 ahead of even less attractive candidates like Jorge Sampaoli and Ronald Koeman. Despite being in-house as Castilla coach, Solari was not really considered when Zidane exited last summer. Club president Florentino Perez eventually had to extract Julen Lopetegui from the Spain national job when higher profile candidates like Jurgen Klopp, Antonio Conte and Max Allegri said no. And then promote internally when that Lopetegui experiment went very wrong.
There are similarities too in the way they set up their teams – with a solid structure put in place to allow their big-name creators to do their thing. Valverde has taken much of the blame for his team not playing the exciting and aesthetically pleasing football many at the Camp Nou expect. Even still, he has not publicly criticised a board which has failed completely to replace players like Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Dani Alves, who were vital to the style of Pep's side.
Solari is also dealing with a weaker hand than that enjoyed by Mourinho or Zidane, particularly due to Ronaldo’s departure last summer. He has similarly set out to make the best of what he has – sidelining talented but defensively suspect stars like Marcelo and Isco, in favour of more dependable youth team products Sergio Reguilon and Lucas Vazquez.
Both Solari and Valverde are now under contract until 2021, but know that depends on their team getting results on the pitch. Valverde’s domestic double last season was quite an achievement, however his future was all the time being questioned. Even when signing a new contract earlier this month he more or less admitted that staying beyond the summer was still dependent on the team winning more trophies in the coming months.
Solari is probably the Madrid coach since Mourinho who most follows the political stance preferred by Bernabeu chief Perez. He has backed the club line in controversies over VAR, and also nodded to local pundits’ claims that LaLiga’s authorities deliberately favoured Barca by allowing the Catalan side an extra day’s rest ahead of both this year’s Copa semi-final legs.
However, the Argentine does not see his job as making headlines. Asked seven different times about Gareth Bale’s current mood at Tuesday’s press conference at Valdebebas, he just gave a different version of the same meaningless non-answer each time. Meanwhile, Valverde was his usual affable and nonplussed self with the media pre-game, refusing to take the bait when offered chances to criticise Madrid over VAR or anything else. Both men seem very happy to avoid the type of media spotlight which followed many of their predecessors around 24/7.
However, the lack of a protective shield generated by their playing CV or personal charisma ensure that neither Solari and Valverde are seen as central to either club's future. Mourinho managed to survive overall defeat in 2011’s storm of Clasicos, mostly due to his force of personality and media management skills. But any big loser this week will be under severe pressure. Mainly because of who they are not.
