Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho distinguished the demands at Real Madrid from those at a club like Arsenal in his press conference before the game against Villarreal on Saturday. He was talking about quite a few things in the press conference, but something that stood out the most was how difficult it is to manage. He talked about how different, as well as difficult, it is to manage a club like Real Madrid because of their successes and what they have achieved over the course of their history.
Real Madrid cannot be treated as any other club in the world because of the demands that fans have of them: winning every single title every single season. Now, Real Madrid and Arsenal are two big clubs, but there is a clear difference in how everything is run. He used Mikel Arteta as an example for that. He said, “Yesterday I read something interesting that would not happen at Real Madrid. Mikel Arteta renewed his contract, and some said something like, ‘We are still starting, and this is the beginning’, and he has been there for years. You cannot do that at Real Madrid. The demands here are just different.
Everyone knows Real Madrid are on a different level, which also comes with its cons
Mourinho talked about a lot of things in this press conference, but if you had to pinpoint one of them as the most accurate and the most correct, it definitely would be this. The biggest thing about all of this is that when you come to Real Madrid as a manager, you are expected to win, regardless of the conditions you are in.
Arteta gets the leeway at Arsenal to be able to have a project and build everything from scratch without having any success in the past, and then slowly build a team up for future triumphs. At Real Madrid, you cannot do that because you are expected to win from day one. Asking for two or 3 seasons of time, that just would not be possible at a big club like Real Madrid.
For any other club, if they are in a situation that Arsenal were a decade ago, they would probably have a similar idea. With Real Madrid, firstly, they cannot get to the level that Arsenal were a decade ago, but also, they would still have demands from the club to compete for every single title every single season. For a manager of any stature, a job like that is going to be more demanding than anything they do before or after. Those demands also translate to the players.
If these players are playing for any other club and they are in a transition period, they don't have as much pressure to win every single title, and they can focus on improving as a player and as a collective.
At Real Madrid, you have to do both at once. You have to focus on winning titles, but you also have to focus on playing well enough to not be criticised for every single thing that you do by the media or the fans. You also have to build chemistry among your teammates because that is what will get you to achieve both of your goals. You have to do everything at the same time, which is why it is just so excruciatingly difficult to both manage the club, and play for them.
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