Once upon time Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola were close buddies during their time at Barcelona as you can see in this picture, when Jose Mourinho worked under Luis Van Gaal as assistant manager at Barca and Pep was the club captain at the time.

But that was all to change when both men became managers at two of the biggest rival clubs in Spain, Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively.

Their first La Liga meeting as managers ended in a humiliating 5 – 0 defeat for Real and Mourinho. And from then, as a man who is so adverse to losing Mourinho threw everything in his locker to distabilise Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona team (the team most commentators believe was one of best, if not the best all time football team ever) but to very little success. In fact their teams met in 11 El-Classicos with Pep winning 9 of those to Jose’s 2. However most of their matches were marred by scuffles and commotions. In one particular incident, a very reckless foul on Cesc Fabregas from Marcelo led to one of the biggest pitch side fracas involving both set of players and management staff. During the commotion Mourinho inexplicably poked former Barcelona assistant manager, the late Titto Villanova in the eye. It was that bad in the end.

Mourinho’s off-field tactics designed to ruffle the usually calm Guardiola worked to some extent, even though it left some bad taste in the mouth of the watching fans around the World and probably the defamation it caused to Real’s image led to Mourinho’s sacking.

Here are some of Guardiola’s comments during their time in La Liga.

Once when told he has some similarities to Jose Pep quipped: “If that’s true, I will have to revise my behaviour.

“I try to learn from Jose on the pitch, but I prefer to learn as little as possible from him off the pitch,added Pep, clearly referring to Jose’s antics.

Mourinho also had a share of the remarks on Pep’s achievements on the pitch, once, in referring to Barcelona’s disputed Champions League victory over Guus Hiddink’s Chelsea in 2009 Mourinho remarked:

“I would be ashamed to have won it with the scandal of Stamford Bridge.

If he wins it this year, it will be with the scandal of the Bernabeu. Deep down, if they are good people, it cannot taste right for them. I hope one day Guardiola has the chance of winning a brilliant, clean championship with no scandal.” Mourinho blaming the referee favouring Guardiola’s side after the 2-0 loss to Barcelona in the 2011 Champions League semi-final, first leg.

However, since their arrival in the Premier both manager’s have desist the temptation to rekindle their old rivalry despite being at two local clubs with intense rivalry.

In fact Mourinho did his best to abstain from reigniting their feud when the media tried to draw him him in when he joined Manchester United.

“In a situation like in Spain), individual fights make sense because they can influence things. But in the Premier League, if I focus on him and Manchester City, and he on me and Manchester United, someone else is going to win the league,” said Mourinho.

Can the new found pact stand the test of their first local derby on Saturday? We will see…