‘I didn’t know that Madrid were that annoyed by Levante,’ confessed their perplexed coach Luis García. ‘We’re a small club but with big values. I’d like it to be remembered that a team with a budget of €450 million drew against one with the most limited budget in the division. Thanks to that point we’re out of the relegation zone and they’re not leaders.’
Madrid were through to the next round but in the Levante dressing room there remained a prevailing feeling of humiliation. Luis García had given the result up and rested Robusté, Xavi Torres, Javi Venta, Juanlu and Ballesteros.
The game was played on Thursday 6 January. Mourinho watched Madrid concede two goals before the final whistle. It was the team’s second defeat of the season, after the 5–0 at the Camp Nou. The aggregate result, however, assured Madrid of a spot in the quarter-finals of the cup.
It was all Levante could do to finish the season in 14th position. Not many teams are better prepared for the annual routine of resistance. It is hard to imagine a club any further removed from Madrid. Their matches played against each other in the league are sporadic clashes that, rather than cranking up any fierce rivalry, have historically served to cement a sense of fraternity. Most of the Levante directors are Madridistas. The family of Vicente Boluda, a former president of Madrid, comes from a long line of Levante directors. As with many provincial clubs, fans’ sentiments are split. The older supporters remember with admiration the visits of the Madrid team of Di Stéfano in the sixties. They were festive occasions. The matches were held at the Mestalla to maximise the size of the crowd, and fans mixed in an atmosphere of brotherhood.
‘We’ve only spent a few years in the first division and people want to follow a team that fights for titles, wins leagues and Champions Leagues,’ says Vicente Iborra. ‘Many Levante fans also follow Madrid or Barça because, after all, they’re the biggest clubs in Spain – and supporting nearby Valencia is out of the question. When they come here to play, the ground is invariably full of people backing those teams. We have no choice but to accept it and play well on the pitch to increase our own support base.’
Madrid returned to the Ciutat de Valencía to play the fourth game of the 2011–12 season on 18 September. They lost 1–0 in what was another heated match. With new coach Juan Ignacio Martínez in charge, Levante refined the approach they had taken the previous year.
‘We knew that if we went after them they’d be better than us both physically and in terms of quality,’ recalls Iborra. ‘We tried to deny them space because we knew that on the counter-attack – and especially in one-on-one situations – they’re the best team out there. We tried to stay very close together on the pitch, help each other, be very committed and take our chances. Fortunately, it went well. We were able to beat them, and other teams realised that if you play them on their terms then you lose 99 per cent of the time. It’s an intelligent way to play them. Don’t allow them space, until they end up feeling uncomfortable. Perhaps in that sense Barcelona are a better side; they know how to find the space while in possession, waiting for the opportunity. Madrid don’t, and teams have realised that you can’t allow them space to run into.’
That second stumble against Levante renewed Madrid’s rivalry with them, hardening the grudge held by Mourinho. He kept up the provocation, although he pursued it via other means, employing Pepe to irritate opposing players and prevent them from concentrating on competing during the game. Casillas’s appeal to colleagues in the Levante dressing room to try to end the resentment between the teams had very limited effect. By the time Madrid showed up at the Ciutat de Valencía to play a league match on 11 November 2012, Ballesteros and his team-mates had identified whom they considered to be the Madrid coach’s enforcers. In particular they singled out Pepe, but also Ronaldo, Di María and Coentrão, all represented by Mendes, Mourinho’s agent and friend, calling them ‘Mourinho’s puppets’. In the first minute Navarro went for a loose ball with Ronaldo and gashed his opponent’s eyebrow with his elbow. Ronaldo took it very sportingly; the bleeding was stopped, a bandage was fixed and he began to play football as best he could. He even scored a goal.
Levante lost the game 1–2. After the match the home players say they saw Pepe dancing in the tunnel. ‘It was as if he were dancing the “jota”,’ said a witness, referring to a traditional Spanish dance, usually accompanied by castanets. ‘He was yelling, “Take that! Take that! Take that …!”’ When he heard about this, Ballesteros went straight to the dressing room and found Pepe heading for the treatment room. Versions of what happened next are conflicting. The Madrid players say Pepe fought bravely, but the Levante players say their captain grabbed Pepe by the neck with one hand while repeatedly hitting him in the head with the other. When he released him, Pepe ran for cover. ‘Dance now!’ roared Ballesteros. ‘Call your boss to defend you.’
The small medical room quickly filled up with about 30 people. Adán, the Madrid goalkeeper, was the first to intervene on Pepe’s behalf, aided by his team-mates. Soon, all the Levante squad were there. Some Madrid players, like Casillas and Albiol, tried to separate the scuffling players. Others took the opportunity to settle old scores. Ballesteros was going around warning Madrid players, ‘Tell Pepe that today he’s laughed and danced, but in two weeks’ time when you go to Barcelona we’ll be the ones laughing.’ Ballesteros, for his part, denied being part of any fight when he was interviewed by several radio journalists as he left the stadium.
The melée had cooled when Juanfran, Juanlu and Iborra exchanged words with some Madrid players. Someone remembered Mourinho.
‘Do you notice that there’s one person missing here? We’re all killing each other and the one who started it all is nowhere to be seen!’
Barça won 0–4 two match days later on the same stage. Levante turned in a serious and rigorous performance, but there were no over-the-top challenges, the two teams exchanged shirts, and at the end of the game Xavi, Puyol and Iniesta asked the senior Levante players about the situation at the club. As ambassadors observing the basic rules of etiquette, they knew that showing some warmth also made practical sense.
The victory helped Barça consolidate their lead in the table on what was a particularly happy weekend for the team. The day before, on 24 November, Madrid lost 1–0 in Seville against Betis, dropping 11 points behind in the table. It was still a month before Christmas but the league was virtually resolved – and Madrid were facing an unexpected crisis. Ever since Sunday morning, Pérez had been making calls to various figures at different levels of the club, from the offices of the Bernabéu to Valdebebas. He consulted officials, technicians, players, as well as his friends and advisors, people who were not legally tied to Madrid. He asked everyone if they believed sacking Mourinho would solve the problems of a squad that was sinking fast in the league.
The games against Levante – the most unlikely of direct rivals – and the Madrid supporters’ urgent need for success meant that the team’s directors, instead of processing serenely as usual through good times and bad, had responded with all the fervour of a firebrand preacher. Ramón Calderón had behaved in a similar way when he took the stand to celebrate his election as president one hot evening in 2006 in the Plaza de Lima. All around, the talk was of the need to copy Rijkaard’s Barcelona, who had lifted the Champions League a month earlier, and the new president was busy trying to please voters by announcing that the hiring of Fabio Capello would guarantee success. Excited, he proclaimed that in 2007 the fans would go to the Plaza de Cibeles to celebrate winning the league ‘any way we can!’
Calderón did not have any written speech but spoke from his heart. The words read by Pérez the day after he began his third term on 1 June 2009, a week after Guardiola’s Barcelona had won their first Champions League, were unusually melodramatic for an executive who had made modesty and calm his trademark between 2000 and 2006. But in the new era there was no room for formalities.
‘We must recover our dreams, our stability and the time we have lost as soon as we can,’ said the new president. ‘Real Madrid has to leave all doubts behind and tirelessly work towards the lofty goal that should always be present in its spirit – to endeavour at all times to