The arrivals of Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho in the north west have ensured Spanish interest in the English fixture is higher than it has ever been
Sergio Aguero’s elbow on Winston Reid ensured there was plenty to get stuck into a full 13 days before the Manchester derby.
It didn’t take long for hundreds of United supporters to frantically (or pathetically) tweet the FA in a bid to get the Argentine banned. When some City fans then claimed the governing body was biased because its Twitter picture showed United lifting a trophy - the Football Association Community Shield - you knew this wasn’t going to be any old game.
The media were also rounded on, with City fans insisting ‘the agenda’ had once again surfaced when pictures of the Aguero incident were splashed on the back pages of several British newspapers.
The build-up was in full swing, and there hadn’t even been a mention of the Jose Mourinho-Pep Guardiola rivalry by this point.
In Spain, though, it is the two managers that have propelled the Premier League clash up the news agenda. The Manchester derby has become a blockbuster event on the English football calendar in recent years, but it is the arrival of Pep and Mou that has caught the imagination abroad.
This is Barcelona versus Real Madrid by proxy. “When Guardiola wins it is seen as a reinforcement of his ideals, of Barcelona’s ideals. When he loses - and especially if it’s at the hands of Mourinho - it is used to attack those ideals,” as a Spanish source put it this week.
The overwhelming popularity of the two , as well as the intense rivalry between the pair, has added extra significance to this historic English fixture.
It is hard to imagine a non-Spanish sporting event that could ever knock Barcelona off the front pages of Sport and Mundo Deportivo, or stop Marca and AS analysing every little piece of Madrid news, but Saturday’s Manchester derby has enjoyed its fair share of column inches over the past week.
It is not surprising to see scores of articles chronicling the history of the rivalry between the clubs or the two managers, nor pieces on the price of attending the game or even how Manchester is currently the capital of English football, but they would not normally appear in the online and print versions of Spain’s biggest media outlets. This week, Marca has dedicated one full page to anything related to the derby, and its website even more.
“For the last few seasons, when a Manchester derby came, I probably did the match report on the newspaper and my weekend section on the radio about it later in the day, and that's it,” El Periodico’s Pol Gustems tells Goal.
“With Pep Guardiola, especially, and Jose Mourinho this season in Manchester, the coverage has increased a lot. A lot.”
So far this week, Gustems has been interviewed on radio and television in Catalunya twice a day, and will give his views morning, afternoon and evening on Friday, and both before and after the game itself on Saturday - as well as additional coverage in the newspaper.
That should come as no surprise: his preview of the pre-season friendly between the two clubs - which would later be postponed - was given top billing on the sports pages.
As Gustems alluded to, it is Guardiola himself, rather than the derby, which really peaked interest in Catalunya. Ever since he took to the balcony of the Generalitat Palace in 1992 to hold the European Cup aloft and declare “Citizens of Catalunya, you have the cup here” - a nod to the former Catalan president who had stood on the same spot 15 years earlier to mark his return from exile - Guardiola has been an icon not just of Barcelona but of Catalunya and its quest for independence.
Catalan journalists followed him to Munich to report on his time at Bayern and his highs and lows at City will be covered in detail just the same - Sport hired a full-time English football correspondent this summer in anticipation of his arrival at the Etihad Stadium.
Mourinho does not embody Real Madrid in anywhere near the same way but there is no denying that his arrival at United has provided extra intrigue in Catalunya and caught the attention of the rest of the country. Any hint of controversy between the two men is sure leapt upon in Spain just as much, if not more so, as in Britain.
An article in Mundo Deportivo
An article in Sport
A Spanish reporter made the trip to Beijing to ask Guardiola about his feelings on Mourinho ahead of the scheduled friendly in July, and there was huge interest at both pre-match press conferences this Friday: five radio stations, five newspapers and two television stations were at the City Football Academy for Guardiola's briefing.
They may not be so lucky at Old Trafford on Saturday, however. There is simply too much interest and even British newspapers have been limited to one representative, while some online outlets will miss out altogether.
Cadena SER, a prominent Spanish radio station, are among those to have had accreditation requests turned down. They had hoped to send journalists to Manchester to provide live radio commentary, but will have to make do with reporting what they see on television instead.
That is instructive both of the demand to be at Old Trafford, and the demand to follow the action no matter where you are.
Nothing will ever topple the Clasico in Spain, but the latest chapter of the Mourinho-Guardiola rivalry has put the Manchester derby firmly on the map, whether that’s in Andalusia or Zaragoza.
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