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Image: Rivals: Guardiola and Mourinho

The Revista panel debate whether Real Madrid must be more daring to take silverware off Barcelona.

Real have 'a psychological problem', says Guillem

Will Jose Mourinho win anything this season? That's the question ahead of Wednesday's Copa del Rey final between Real Madrid and Barcelona after Saturday's 1-1 draw between the teams effectively ended Mourinho's hopes of finishing top of La Liga. Real could yet walk off with the Champions League - but they will have to get past Barca in the semi-final stage first. But in order to do that there are those, including club great Alfredo di Stefano, who believe Mourinho must adopt more positive tactics. Di Stefano accused Real of playing 'like mice' in the wake of Saturday's draw, which left Barca eight points clear with six games to go.

Tourniquet

But Spanish football expert Graham Hunter took issue with that assessment, not least because Real lost Raul Albiol to a red card in the 53rd minute. "I thought Barcelona, by their standards, played poorly in terms of their speed of movement, their accuracy of movement of the ball and how little width they managed to gain," said Hunter. "At 1-0 up they went to sleep and I really think that if you have a haemorrhage you try and apply a tourniquet; Mourinho did it effectively. I think Madrid should have won. "On the way back I was on the team flight with Barcelona. There was very little recrimination, very few long faces. "They take this as job done and I think they believe it will be very different from now on and it will have to be, from the Barcelona point of view, otherwise the Mourinho effect might start robbing them of trophies."
Self-belief
Before Saturday, Real Madrid hadn't scored in three El Clasicos contributing to a massive 17-3 advantage in Barcelona's favour over the previous six meetings between the teams. Former Valencia and Liverpool assistant manager Pako Ayestaran told Revista that Mourinho may well have to reconsider playing Pepe in the middle of a three-man midfield if his side is to become more creative and get the best results out of Xabi Alonso. "One of the reasons he put Pepe was not just to stop the game but to bully Messi and try to stop Barcelona's key player - and it worked," said Ayestaran. "To believe that you are close to a target, you have to see yourself close and one of the reasons that he put three players in the centre was to try to build the self-belief of the team. "But you want to win the game. If he played 100 times in this way against Barcelona I don't think he will win more than one or two. You don't want a holding midfielder just to stop the game."
Problem
But fellow guest Guillem Balague defended Mourinho's approach, saying: "I see all this criticism and I understand what's being said, but what other way can you play Barcelona? "We are talking about a team that has a psychological problem - they lost 5-0 and it's clear that they had to improve that - but it is also a team that has to play this way to stop what is a very expansive Barcelona." Hunter hit back: "You have to remember there are two teams in this game and in a fight you don't know if a champion has trained as well as he always does or has got a glass jaw or not, and until you a put a little blow on his jaw you don't know if you are going to win or not."