Jose Mourinho ready for Bayern, Barcelona and the record books

Jose Mourinho will tonight sport what he once termed his "ready for war" haircut. Cropped far shorter than usual, the Real Madrid coach first adopted the severe style when at Chelsea in 2006, the season before it all unravelled. It is more GI Joe than GQ for the 'Special One'.

Amid the plaudits and compliments to Bayern Munich, Real's heavyweight opponents in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final this evening, there was a typically barbed, calculated comment from Mourinho.

Which team, he was asked, are the favourites? "More important than my opinion are those 1,000 opinions that you have from everyone who has something to say in football, who have some credibility in football and whose words you have to respect," was his ambled reply.

"You hear top people like [Franz] Beckenbauer, [Ottmar] Hitzfeld, Oliver Kahn and [Karl-Heinz] Rummenigge, who say that Bayern are stronger, that Real have some sort of complex, that they are our bogey team. It's all been mentioned - and that we have been knocked out."

There was even a curl of the lip, as Mourinho was subjected to a press conference, an event he has shunned of late because of the bad blood between him and the Spanish media.

Why was he speaking last night? "Well in the Champions League I have to speak," he said, referring to Uefa's threats that his absence would be dealt with harshly.

Conflict has stalked the meetings between these two glamour clubs - FC Hollywood v the Galacticos - who have been European champions 13 times between them and who have a catalogue of dispute which has stretched from Juanito stamping on Lothar Matthaus's head to earn a five-year ban to the Bayern team storming off during a pre-season friendly after a player was dismissed for making an obscene gesture to a fan.

Bayern have been arming themselves with history, also, while the rest of Europe salivates at the array of talent on show - from Cristiano Ronaldo, who Chelsea want to bring back to England, to Thomas Muller.

The Germans have won 13 of their last 14 games in Munich, where Real have never won in nine attempts, while the Spaniards have only one win from 22 visits to Germany.

What did Mourinho make of all that? "History doesn't count tomorrow," he said. "It has no meaning."

Having demolished much of the Bayern glitterati - Mourinho will not have forgotten that Beckenbauer, the club's former president and captain, once referred to him as "rude and without education" - he went on to dismiss questions about his handling of Kaka and Lassana Diarra.

He would, he said, sleep easy despite the weight of the occasion as he, nevertheless, pursues history. "These are the games on which I have no doubts," Mourinho declared. "I know who is playing, who is on the bench, who is in the stands. I sleep well for one or two days before these kind of games and tomorrow is one of those games."

It was a bravura statement from a man who is striving to become the first coach to win Europe's top prize with three clubs, having triumphed with Porto in 2004 and Inter Milan in 2010. He left, of course, after both those victories and his future at Real remains in doubt even if he is said to be calmer than he was in January.

Will he quit this summer to rekindle his love affair with the Premier League? Maybe it depends as much on toppling Barcelona domestically as well as in Europe and how delicious it would be for him to claim the league title and then take the Champions League also from Pep Guardiola.

The El Clasico is on Saturday at the Nou Camp, before the second leg of this tie. If he wins the title he will become the first coach to do so in Spain, Italy and England. "We have nothing to lose," he said, referring to the fact that it was Barca protecting titles. "We are going to go for them and we are focused on that."

The officials this evening, led by referee Howard Webb, include Martin Atkinson, behind the goal, who wrongly awarded Chelsea a goal in Sunday's FA Cup semi-final. Mourinho knows all about 'ghost goals' having lost a Champions League semi-final, with Chelsea, at Liverpool in 2005 through Luis Garcia's effort.