Quizzed on whether that is a shrewd call or recipe for disaster, ex-Madrid striker Owen – the face of Casino.org in the UK, a leading comparison website helping Brits find online casinos that suit their preferences – told GOAL: “A surprising one for me. He’s not done amazingly well in his last handful of jobs. He’s had a go at Real Madrid already. I was surprised by it. Not that enthused by it, to be honest. We will wait and see.
“Barcelona are in good form at the moment. He’ll have his work cut out. But it is Real Madrid at the end of the day. They’ve got a lot of money. They’ve got a lot of great players. They’ve got a great stadium, a great squad. It’s an amazing job to be taking so I don’t blame him for taking it. But I was surprised that Madrid gave it to him, I must admit.”
With Real having gone two seasons without landing the biggest of domestic and continental prizes, are they now prepared to sacrifice style for substance? In response to that question, Owen added: “In a way. But there’s lots of other managers that win. What’s Jose Mourinho won in the last five years or whatever? Even his time at Real Madrid wasn’t scintillating. So it’s not like you put Jose in and it’s a guaranteed win and you’ve got to just take all the rubbish that’s going to go along with it – the histrionics and everything else.
“There’s no guarantee of winning with him. You could have said there was 15 years ago. But just to appoint him and say, ‘right, okay, we’re going to accept histrionics, but at least we’re going to win’. I don’t think that’s a given at all. If it was just a guarantee of winning, then I would get it. But I don’t think there is that guarantee.”
