Mourinho back to his old sh*thousery tricks as Real Madrid win La Liga opener | OneFootball

Did you really think Jose Mourinho was going to sit calmly all the way through game one of his second Real Madrid spell? Of course you didn’t.

It hasn’t taken long at all for Real Madrid’s returning boss to bring the antics back. Just one match, in fact. The subject of his ire this time: Denzel Dumfries.

During Real Madrid’s La Liga opener against Espanyol – which went on to finish 2-1 in Mourinho’s side’s favour thanks to a late Carlos Espi winner – Dumfries was dawdling over a throw in. You can’t get away with that these days, after new anti-timewasting rules were brought in ahead of the new season. And Mourinho wasn’t taking any chances.

Sensing that Dumfries had been taking just a little bit too long, Mourinho got out of his seat and raced towards the right-back, yelling at him to get the ball back in play.

Dumfries obliged and chucked the ball into the middle of the park. Panic over.

Had Dumfries not taken the throw-in in time – within five seconds, precisely – then because of the new laws, it would have been overturned and given to Espanyol.

It wasn’t a risk that Mourinho was willing to see his player make.

You often hear of players losing a yard of pace in the later years of their career. You’d assume their managers would be even slower, but here was Mourinho at 63, looking sharp off the mark as he leapt out of the dugout to chase down his intended target. No messing about whatsoever.

If his attackers can reproduce that kind of acceleration on the pitch, Madrid should be a dangerous side.

We’re under no illusion that Mourinho and his contemporaries will find new ways to game the system and run down the clock. He knows a thing or two about timewasting and isn’t going to stop his whatever-it-takes mentality now.

But if he is to protect his reputation as the master of the dark arts, he knows he’ll have to ensure such tactics remain subtle. In the face of new rules, he has to adapt.

There would have been a blatant punishment for what Dumfries was at risk of doing. It’s just not a tightrope that teams can walk down anymore.

And so we have our first moment to register on the Mourinho entertainment-o-meter this season. There will be bigger and better readings, but it’s a solid start.