The knee slide on the touchline on Sunday night was not as theatrical as the sprint across the Nou Camp 16 seasons ago. Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan had lost that night, 1-0, fighting stubbornly with 10 men to preserve their 3-2 aggregate over Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering Barcelona, but the Portuguese called it “the sweetest defeat of my life.” Later, Real Madrid’s president Florentino Perez dropped him to the hotel in his limousine. A few weeks later, Perez unveiled Mourinho as the “galactico”, setting off another chapter in a love-hate triangle story.

Mourinho, one of Bobby Robson’s coaching staff in the mid-90s and then a prime managerial candidate before Guardiola’s ascent, had once sworn that he would land in Bernabeu “only to destroy them”. But there he was, gliding out to plot against his former employers. His vow is working inversely. Barcelona have not beaten him in six Clasicos.

Age has mellowed Mourinho, extinguished some of his fire and vanity.…