Manchester is the perfect battleground for the biggest rivalry in football: why Mourinho versus Guardiola is worthy of the hype

No rivalry in world football feels as comprehensive, as intensely personal and tactical, as the one between Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola. Ever since departing La Liga their shadows have loomed large over Manchester, drawn in, it would seem, by a fatalistic allure to lock horns in the richest city in world football. It is the perfect environment in which to renew their rivalry, and marks the beginning of what should be one of the most exciting periods in the history of the area: an era of exhilarating football, of spitting post-match feuds, and of a tactical dichotomy defined by thesis versus anti-thesis, idealism versus pragmatism. Pep versus Jose is worthy of the hype.

Mourinho and Guardiola worked harmoniously together at Louis van Gaal’s Barcelona in the 90s, where the seeds were sewn for the predominant tactical philosophy of the next two decades of European football: Luis Enrique, Ronald Koeman, Frank de Boer, Laurent Blanc, Phillip Cocu and Guardiola were all members of a side that indulged in the pure idealism of pressing and possession football created in the Cruyff era and reverberating ever since in the heart of Catalonia.

But Mourinho - a Portuguese with no experience of playing at the highest level - was always a slight outsider, and would gradually come to define his personal philosophy in direct – and deliberate - opposition to this Barcajax model. Twenty years on, Mourinho could not be more opposed to the system about to descend on the blue half of Manchester.

Their rivalry began in 2008, when Mourinho was overlooked for the Barcelona job in favour of the inexperienced Guardiola - a decision made on the basis that Mourinho’s divisive persona jarred with the aesthetic of the Barca brand. Furious, Jose began a personal journey to become everything Barcelona was not - and the antithesis to the man who most acutely symbolised the club Mourinho had grown to despise.

Guardiola’s ultra-indulgent tiki-taka football was an extreme form of Barcelona’s ideology and, whilst his idealism has softened through necessity at Bayern Munich, he remains the archetypal possession-obsessed manager. Mourinho, by contrast, is the master of the counter-attack and stand-off defending, where control and dominance are measured by a ruthlessly Machiavellian approach to winning. That their tactical strategies are so sharply contradictory is no accident: Mourinho, embittered by Barcelona’s rejection, has deliberately sculpted an identity as the anti-Barcelona.

His movement towards a counter-possession philosophy was gradual, peaking spectacularly at Inter-Milan in 2008 when his side knocked Pep’s Barcelona out of the Champions League semi-final by following a 3-1 win at the San Siro with an ugly 1-0 defeat at the Camp Nou in an era-defining match. Sat in a low block, Inter refused Barca entry with a stubborn, ultra-defensive approach that nullified wave after wave of furious tiki-taka passing; they recorded just one shot on goal and held 19% possession, but somehow ground out an aggregate victory on Barcelona’s own patch. Mourinho had got his revenge.

The victory proved, defiantly, that the beauty and elegance of Barcelona’s angelic approach could be countered, and that Mourinho was the one with the answers.

Real Madrid appointed Mourinho as manager in 2011 for precisely this reason. Sick of Guardiola’s Barca dominating La Liga, Real president Florentino Perez was prepared to abandon the club’s tradition of glamorous attacking football; anything to end Pep’s smugly adored reign over Europe. Mourinho, of course, was the man who could deliver.

Their relationship deteriorated spectacularly during Mourinho’s first two years in Madrid, ending in an emotionally drained Guardiola leaving the Camp Nou for a sabbatical. It is difficult to deny that Mourinho’s antics – the incessant jibes and the tireless campaign against Barca – did not play a big part in his decision. By the end, Guardiola was as weary and worn down as the rest of Spanish football.

It was in the build up to their 2011 Champions League semi-final clash when signs of Guardiola struggling to cope with Mourinho’s mind games became glaringly obvious. “Senor Mourinho has permitted himself the luxury of calling me Pep, so I will call him Jose,” Guardiola told the assembled media. “Which one is your camera, Jose? All of them, I suppose… Tomorrow at 8.45pm we face each other on the pitch. He has won the battle off the pitch. If he wants his own personal Champions League trophy away from the pitch, let him take it home and enjoy it. In this room, Mourinho is the f***ing chief, the f***ing boss. He knows all about this and I don’t want to compete with him in here”.

Barcelona were victorious the following day, but the cracks were appearing and 12 months later Mourinho’s Real had toppled the giants of world football after a season that saw Guardiola gradually sink to the same petty levels of his adversary. Mourinho spent the year relentlessly attacking Barcelona for the arrogance of their “purist” football, desperate to show that Barca’a philosophy was not the only legitimate style. In a season that saw Real amass 100 points and score 121 goals Jose clearly proved his point, but in persistently attacking Barcelona he was once against defining himself as the anti-Guardiola.

In his biography of Mourinho, Diego Torres claims that he created a seven point plan for winning big games during his time in Madrid: the team who makes the fewest errors, who encourages mistakes in the opposition, and who renounces possession is the stronger team, whilst the team with the ball is more likely to make a mistake and thus has greater fear and less control. This is a categorical rejection of Pep’s idealism, a reactive philosophy of a man happy to negate progressive football; it is, in short, an anti-thesis that slowly ran Guardiola into the ground.

The rivalry has not cooled since. After Chelsea wrapped up the Premier League title in 2014, Mourinho chose – yet again – to launch an unprovoked attack on Guardiola, whose Bayern side were dominating the Bundesliga. “I could choose another club in another country where to be champions is easier”, he said, to an assembled media bemused by the sharpness of his tone during this moment of personal triumph. “Maybe in the future I have to be smarter and choose another club in another country where everybody is champion. Maybe I will go to a country where a kit-man can be coach and win the title.”

He cannot accuse Guardiola of complacency this time around. The challenges facing Manchester City are similar to those of United, and the pressure on both even greater than at Real Madrid or Barcelona. It is almost impossible to predict what will unfold over the next few years, but one thing is virtually guaranteed: it will be a fascinating era in Manchester’s footballing history. In 2016/17, the two best coaches in world football will, with diametrically opposed tactical philosophies, battle for supremacy from within the same city.

An ideological dichotomy has never been so purely defined in football - or so fuelled by personal grievances - and at evenly matched clubs with almost unlimited spending power both Mourinho and Guardiola are about to embark on the most challenging head-to-head of their respective careers. The excitement building in Manchester is entirely justified.