“If we lose against Sporting, we lose our chance of the league title,” Jose Mourinho, Real Madrid's head coach, had warned. Five points behind Barcelona at the beginning of the day, but over forty ahead of Sporting Gijon, it seemed the sort of throwaway remark unlikely to haunt him.
But Madrid were curiously impotent in falling to their third loss of the league campaign and badly missed the injured Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema, who are both doubtful for Tuesday’s European Cup quarter-final against Tottenham Hotspur. Madrid had much the greater share of possession and were kept at bay by some good saves from Juan Pablo in the Sporting goal, but they were also wasteful and at times seemed cowed by the aggression of their guests.
Mourinho knew immediately after the final whistle that the setback, the result of a game settled by a 79th minute goal from Miguel Angel de las Cuevas, would make the next three days extremely uncomfortable for him. Sporting had bristled throughout, mainly because they are by nature a combative side, but each crunching tackle was bound to be interpreted in the light of the vivid, personal and noisy fall-out that Mourinho and Sporting head coach Manolo Preciado had had last November, when Mourinho accused the tough Preciado of having eased up in a narrow Sporting defeat against Barcelona.
The Madrid coach, whose remarkable, nine-year, 150-match run of unbeaten home league games - at Porto, Chelsea, Internazionale and until yesterday, Madrid - ended with this loss, blamed the absence of his stars. “We had a team without our creative players, apart from Mesut Ozil. We had no Cristiano, Benzema, Marcelo, and Xabi Alonso - who was suspended - and we weren’t creative,” said Mourinho.
Madrid had a first-half effort by Ricardo Carvalho ruled out for an infringement and then a penalty appeal for a possible handball turned down. There were, as Mourinho pointed out, numerous chances, too, notably to Manu Adebayor, to Angel di Maria, to Gonzalo Higuain once he returned to first-team action, as a substitute, for the first time since January after his hip operation. “We had to try something different against a team who had everybody back: more direct, longer balls, pressing higher up the pitch,“ argued Mourinho of the tactical two-facedness of Madrid as the match evolved. “We had I don’t know how many chances from close to goal.” Certainly, Madrid ought to have registered on the scoresheet, but Mourinho exaggerated somewhat about the number of clear-cut opportunities in their favour.
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Besides, Sporting had troubled Madrid on the counter-attack a number of times, like when keeper Iker Casillas had to advance from his goal to smother danger from Nacho Novo. The Asturian side then delivered their coup eleven minutes from full-time, De las Cuevas finishing off a neat move, having been set up by Nacho Cases.
For home fans it was a deflating end to a day in which the highlight had been an appearance on the field before kick-off of the former Brazil and Madrid striker Ronaldo. By the end they longed for some of his finishing, or a least for a fit version of their current Ronaldo, the Portuguese one.
After such a lacklustre build-up to Tuesday’s big European night, Mourinho indicated that even a partially fit Cristiano Ronaldo would be pressed into service against Spurs. “If he has the possibility of playing, it‘s worth risking. The doctors say he will only be ready for a week’s time, but if it‘s up to the two of us, me and the player, to decide, then it‘s his risk and my risk. Maybe we‘ll go above the doctors. They might all kill us for it, but perhaps it‘s worth the risk.”
Mourinho then took another risk. He decided to retract, in his post-defeat press conference, the prediction that losing against Sporting would be to condemn Madrid to second place in La Liga this season, and declare the pursuit of Barcelona a lost cause. “Mathematically, it’s not over,” he insisted, “but if Barcelona win at Villarreal, and the five point gap becomes eight points, then, objectively, winning the league is practically impossible.”
A few hours later, at Villarreal, Gerard Pique scored the winning goal for Barcelona in their 1-0 away win. Madrid’s deficit in the title-tilt had indeed stretched to eight points.