Jorge Valdano, El Filósofo, is profiled in the Financial Times today by Simon Kuper. There's loads of great material and riduculous- digs at Barcelona, especially at Pep who he calls a caricature, soft endorsements of Mourinho, etc. We've bracketed off some of his best quotes below.
On "the desire for spectacle":
“The leader of Barcelona is the style of play. Heading Barça now is a person who takes the respect for this culture to the point of exaggeration: Pep Guardiola [the current coach]. In Madrid it was always different. At Real there is an enormous passion for triumph. Here, there’s an admiration for the player who gives everything. That’s why a player like Angel di Maria has had such rapid success [at Real]. And there’s also a desire for spectacle. In Barcelona that order is reversed: first the play, then the result.”
On The Special One:
"As a player I liked to have more liberty than obligations. Today they apparently prefer more obligations than liberty. ...Almost nobody who has worked under his discipline speaks badly of Mourinho."
On Real's predestination:
“When Barcelona awakens from its dream, el Madrid will be there, to occupy the place it’s always had in football’s history.”
On Ronaldo:
"Before he came to Spain, photographers lined up in the discotheques, but they are still there waiting for him. Ronaldo is an obsessive of training, of the gym, of self-improvement. I’ve never seen a player in such good physical condition. He’s a gladiator.”
