🚨🎙️ José Mourinho: "You can't award the Ballon d'Or because of the Champions League or the World Cup."
"The Ballon d'Or is someone who, when he retires, we'll miss. We all know who made history this summer."
I often get asked why I’m a Barça fan. Or, more specifically, what made me a Barça fan.
The answer is, and always has been, very clear. Identity. Culture. A way of being that transcends anything money can buy.
Everyone is different. I’m not here to tell you there’s a ‘right’ way to love a football club. But for me, watching a club so deeply connected and committed to an identity was, for lack of a better phrase, just so bloody cool.
And while it hasn’t always been smooth sailing, and we have absolutely lost our way at times, the beauty has always been in finding our way back. Back to the identity laid down by the great Johan Cruyff decades ago. Back to what makes Barça, Barça.
I watch clubs throw hundreds of millions at their squads season after season only to get nowhere. Then I look at us, rebuilding from the lowest of lows after making those very same mistakes, turning once again to our identity and achieving infinitely more than essentially unlimited wealth could buy.
What does that speak to?
For me, it’s simple. Our identity is priceless.