Age has mellowed Mourinho, extinguished some of his fire and vanity. The one-liners don’t bite the listener, although he still retains his wit and way with words. Like when he said before the Clasico: “The clásico is just another game in the championship but to say it’s a game like any other would be to lie, totally unreal.” There were no dramatic pauses between words, or antagonism. He delivered the line with matter-of-fact calmness. His brigade did the same on the pitch, a no-frills exhibition of composed football, free of incidents and drama, or bitterness. There was just an odd line of sarcasm in his post-match talk. “The VAR room fell asleep,” he said with a smirk, reflecting on Joao Cancelo’s heavy challenge on teenaged winger Yan Diomande.

But self-admittedly, he is not the stormy petrel he once was. “I’ve matured, I’m more at peace. A win no longer represents the moon to me, and a defeat no longer means hell,” he had said a few years ago. “I can go home and not watch a football match, not think about football. I can do that. At the start of my career, I couldn’t. I was switched on 24 hours a day. I had to find a kind of maturity. Today I feel comfortable with my personality as a man,” he explained. He also knew that his stocks had plummeted, that the super clubs no longer court him.

However, he can still deliver a tactical coup. The plan against Hansi Flick’s Barcelona was simple. Suffocate, steal and strike. They let the hosts’ ball-happy midfield dominate possession, but cut out the passing avenues, decelerating the quick offensive transition. Jude Bellingham (dropping from his advanced area), Bernardo Silva and Tchouameni fiercely man-marked Rodri, Pedri and Fermin Lopez. Passes often found the wrong men, and the symphony juddered.

All three were exceptional, especially Silva. He is eight years older than Pedri, less mobile and agile than him, but with supreme positional sense and an intuition about his adversary’s next move, he outwitted Barca’s conductor. Barcelona somehow clung onto the ball, but when they lost it, Madrid counterattacked swiftly, without losing shape, the forwards pouncing in the twitch of an eyelid.

When Madrid attacked, they went full-throttle. The centre-backs, the much-maligned Ibrahim Konate and Dean Huijsen, bombed forth. Marc Cucurella’s stifling of Lamine Yamal was admirable. He clung onto him like a shadow, and although the Spaniard spun and sped past him a few times, he recovered and impeded his vision. He is a defender born to be a Mourinho lieutenant. His bark and bite are qualities the manager appreciates. “The kid is very good and difficult because, besides being good, he’s clever. He tried everything to get Cucu a yellow card, but Cucu held his own very well,” Mourinho said.

The first goal originated from the left-back sweeping the ball cross-field to Yan Diomande. Defender Gerard Martin cleared the ball, but it rebounded off Mbappe’s body into the goal. A fortuitous goal, but one that Madrid fully deserved.

Although Barcelona equalised, Mourinho stuck to his plans. He did not make any change in haste. His troops knew Barcelona would commit more men upfront. Shots piled on, but Madrid thwarted them. Even as pressure mounted, they didn’t pull the shutters down, but waited for one decisive opportunity wherein they would deliver the knockout blow.

Three minutes away from stoppage time, the knockout blow came. Jude Bellingham jinked past Gabriel Jesus, swiping the thin air, to set Eduardo Camavinga away. He passed to Guler, made the run upfront, received the ball back, sliced past Pau Cubarsi with a svelte touch and squared it to Mbappe. The Frenchman wouldn’t miss from such a close range. Silence descended on Nou Camp, and Mourinho slid on his knees, his tongue out.

It wouldn’t be among his most iconic celebrations, even though it was Madrid’s first win at Barcelona in three years, but he has etched another chapter in his complex love-hate triangle with the El Clasico rivals.