The supposed conflict between Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola and his Real Madrid counterpart Jose Mourinho has intrigued Spain since Mourinho signed for Real in May.

The very next day after the Portuguese "Man of War" signed a contract as the best-paid coach in football history sports daily AS remarked that "the battle between Mourinho and Guardiola will surely be the central feature of the coming season."

How accurate that prediction has proven to be.

Guardiola and Mourinho are, in many ways, the two most important personalities in La Liga at the moment, even more important than Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the idols of the Barca and Real fans.

For once, Real did not sign a "Galactico" player this summer, instead it was a "Galactico" coach.

While past coaches at the Estadio Bernabeu stood in the shadow of the powerful president and sporting director, Mourinho only accepted the Real job on the condition that he would have real power at the club and a massive say on buying and selling players.

Never has a coach been allowed to change the entire football culture and philosophy at Real Madrid. Mourinho, who led Inter Milan to a historic title treble last season, will do this - if president Florentino Perez allows him to.

Perez, a notorious "devourer of coaches," was apparently furious at the lacklustre way Real played in last Sunday's 0-0 debut draw away to Mallorca. He was also annoyed at Mourinho keeping German newboys Mesut Oezil and Sami Khedira on the bench until late on.

Mourinho conceded two weeks ago that "Real Madrid is the biggest and most difficult challenge of my career."

One reason, possibly the main one, why Perez signed Mourinho at such expense was because the self-styled "Special One" managed to edge Barcelona out of the Champions League last season, thus preventing Barca from playing the final against Bayern Munich in Real's Estadio Bernabeu - a truly horrible prospect for Perez and the "madridista" fans.

Mourinho and Guardiola are poles apart in terms of football style, personality and attitudes.

They first met in the late 1990s when Mourinho was assistant to Barca coaches Bobby Robson and Louis Van Gaal, and Guardiola was club captain.

By all accounts, they did not get on very well then - and still do not.

The way that Inter bundled Barca out of the Champions League last May infuriated Guardiola, who is now determined to take revenge.

The two had a frosty meeting on Wednesday at the European coaches' forum at Uefa headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.

Madrid sports daily Marca on Friday had a front-page photograph from Nyon of Mourinho stretching out his hand to Guardiola and the Barca boss looking uncomfortable, as if unsure whether to accept the handshake.

Marca's provocative headline was "Why Was It Difficult For You To Give Him Your Hand, Pep?"

Mourinho's "mind games," which were so infamous in Italy and England, started in earnest this week.

On Monday, he complained long and hard about opposition defenders deliberately targeting the battered right ankle of Cristiano Ronaldo. The winger will be out for another two weeks at least, after taking a heavy blow from Mallorca defender Pablo Cendros.

The next day, Mourinho said that Guardiola had been wrong to sell striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic off cheaply to AC Milan, and hinted that he agreed with some of the Swede's vitriolic criticism of the Barca boss.

On Thursday, Mourinho tried to annoy Guardiola and all Barca fans by saying that the Fifa World Player award should go to Inter and Netherlands star Wesley Sneijder instead of to Barca's Andres Iniesta, arguing that the latter did little in 2010 apart from scoring the only goal in the World Cup final.

Guardiola is trying to keep his cool and ignore Mourinho's provocations, just as he has ignored the attacks of Ibrahimovic.

For the Catalan media, Mourinho is clearly "Public Enemy Number One", and the Barca fans share their contempt and far of him to judge by several online polls.

The headline on the website of Sport on Friday was "Mourinho, Why Don't You Shut Up?"

Sport columnist Josep Fonalleras advises Guardiola and his players, on Friday, not to "fall into the trap" of arguing with Mourinho instead of just ignoring him.

He finished the column thus: "Let him say what he wants. It is best that the rest of us keep quiet."