Look. It is not possible to completely rule out Barcelona winning the Champions League. Stranger things (Steaua Bucharest) have happened in football. There is even a remote possibility that they finish above Girona in the League. In which case there would be a clamor for Xavi Hernández to continue as coach.
But, in case the miracle does not happen, we have to think about who would be his replacement. There are those who dream of Jürgen Klopp, the most charismatic German since… well, you know who. But good vibes. The problems are two. Klopp leaves Liverpool because he wants peace. It is difficult for him to choose to throw himself into the mouth of the culé cannon.
On the other hand, Barça could do very well with Klopp, which would have the potential to upset what many assume is the plan: sell the club, or part of it, to an Arab sheikh or a New York investor.
The best guarantee is offered, in my humble opinion, by José Mourinho. The one who referred to himself as “Harry Potter” last month, a couple of weeks before Roma sacked him, offers a magical cocktail. The guarantee, first, of sinking the team to the point that selling the club would become not only inevitable but, by acclamation, desirable; second, to revalue the Barça brand. I explain.
Mourinho expired a long time ago as a top coach. No club of his has managed to qualify for the Champions League since 2018. He has been kicked out of his last four clubs. He left Roma in ninth position in the table; to Tottenham in seventh; Manchester United in sixth; to Chelsea in sixteenth. “Park the bus,” his signature tactic, no longer works. Under his destructive finger, Barça would descend even further in the League and the style of play would be so atrocious that even fewer people would go to the ghostly venue that the club rents on the cold top of Montjuïc.
For president Joan Laporta, ideal. He must have feared that the members would see the sale of the club as a betrayal of the famous “values”. After hitting rock bottom with Mourinho they would beg him to do it.
The cunning, the Machiavellian, the brilliant thing about Plan Mou is that, seen from the outside, from the perspective of potential foreign buyers, the price of the club would increase. Say what you want about the Portuguese, but he is a blockbuster. His arrival would place Barça at the center of world football. It would be a sexy club again. Yes, possibly sadomasochistic, but it doesn’t matter. Sex sells.
He received six red cards in his last two seasons with Roma. At Barça he would double the record. His press conferences would attract more viewers, and more views on YouTube, than a Manchester City-Real Madrid match.
Which brings us to a couple more reasons to sign him. The method that Mourinho has always used to unite his people has been paranoia. We againts the world. He refined the idea when he was at Madrid. It was us against Barça, and against Catalunya. As is well known, he infused Spanish nationalism with renewed energy, he fertilized the ground for the war that still continues against Catalan nationalism.
With Mourinho at Barça the same thing would happen, but in reverse. He would inject new impetus into the now-decaying independence movement. In his desperation to gain followers, he would resort to the infallible Pavlovian resource of blaming the “Spanish State” for his failures. Soon we would see massive demonstrations again on Barcelona’s avenues, even at the airport, with Mourinho at the helm, transformed into the de facto leader of Junts in the absence of the exiled “terrorist”, Carles Puigdemont.
There will be those who think that I am saying crazy things, that Laporta would never sign an old nemesis like Mourinho. Mistake. Look at the love story he has with the man who was supposed to be his number one enemy, Madrid king Florentino Pérez. No. What would decide Laporta in favor of Mourinho is the following: he agrees more than anyone with the spirit of victimhood that Barça resorts to today to divert attention from the club’s economic and sporting failure. The Special One would play the role with much more conviction and anger than Xavi, a guy who will have his flaws but nothing like a psychopath. It’s clear. Mourinho has to be the chosen one.