"Harry good, Juande bad" may have been a conclusion easily drawn but it is fast becoming one that barely stands up to scrutiny. When Real Madrid replaced their coach Bernd Schuster with Juande Ramos just six weeks after he had been sacked by Spurs, the news was met with knowing sniggers. All it took was Ramos's departure and Harry Redknapp's arrival to immediately lift Tottenham; now the world's biggest club was turning to him in its hour of need. Ramos admits he was "surprised". The English were staggered.
Any suggestion then that Ramos, the "bumbling boss" who had set a White Hart Lane record by recording the worst start in Tottenham's history, might return to the Premier League would have been drowned in laughter. Yet as he smilingly insists that he would welcome the opportunity to go back to England it no longer seems so absurd.
On the evidence of the last three months, perhaps it is Spurs not the Spaniard that were at fault – the re-signing of Jermain Defoe and Robbie Keane providing exhibit A, their still-lowly position – two points from relegation – exhibit B. "There were very clear conditioning factors [that explain failure at Spurs]," Ramos says. "Fundamentally, the composition of the team at the start of the season. If Spurs re-bought players, that says it all."
Exhibit C comes with life beyond the Lane. Just as Martin Jol's Hamburg lie two points off the top of the Bundesliga, Madrid are reborn and Ramos is rehabilitated – if the man who won five trophies in 15 months at Sevilla even needed rehabilitation beyond insular English eyes.
It is institutional insecurity not results that mean Ramos is unlikely to continue at the Santiago Bernabéu beyond June. By his own admission, Madrid chose him in part because "the options were limited". He was an emergency solution who signed a six-month contract with no long-term commitment for club or coach. And although there is, he reveals, a clause in his contract via which silverware triggers an automatic extension, even that "doesn't mean anything". "There will be elections and it's normal for candidates to choose their own people. There is a clause but if they don't want me to continue, I won't," he explains.
Ramos has earned the right to continue. "Madrid were in crisis, it was my job to solve that problem," he says and he has done exactly that. He arrived at the Bernabéu with Madrid struggling for a top-four finish, defeated three times in four, out of the cup and with their Champions League future in doubt. Barely 24 hours later, they were through to the knockout phase but Liverpool fans could still be forgiven for thinking they had the easiest draw.
Not so now. Madrid have won eight successive matches, conceding just one goal. The only new signing playing regularly is Lassana Diarra, a player Ramos says impressed him so much he asked Spurs to sign him from Portsmouth. Otherwise, it is the same team. And yet only what he describes as the "best Barcelona in history" leaves them adrift at the top. "The one thing I can't do is make Barcelona lose, so I won't waste a single second thinking about them. We're satisfied with how we are playing but the league's not in our hands," Ramos insists.
The Champions League is another matter entirely. "It is going to be tremendously close against Liverpool," Ramos says. "Rafa Benítez and I know each others' teams very well but while we can pull strings, it will be the players that tip the balance. I have never had any doubt that Steven Gerrard will play and he will be important but even if we stop him and Fernando Torres there are other players who can score goals, like [Dirk] Kuyt and [Albert] Riera. Our obligation is to win.
"That's nothing to do with proving things to people in England," he adds. "I'm not working for people to make people think that I am a better coach than I was three months ago; I'm working for Real Madrid."
Perhaps not for long, though, and the Premier League could yet offer Ramos a second chance. Although he has been bitten once, he will not be shy. Nor would communication be a problem despite suggestions that his failure to be understood cost him in N17.
