FOOTBALL’S BIGGEST EGO IS STILL IN BUSINESS
JOSE MOURINHO lives for away wins. Home comforts have never motivated him: the familiar rhythms, the soppy adulation of an adoring crowd, the mass conjugal group hugs. No, Mourinho does his favourite work on the road: with boos ringing in his ears, a discarded boarding pass in his back pocket, and pure malice in his soul.
Think Old Trafford 2004, the Nou Camp 2010, Anfield 2014, City’s title parade, Vilanova’s eye. Mourinho enjoys nothing more than coming to your house, wiping his feet on your carpet, perching himself to your best armchair and deleting everything he doesn’t like from your Netflix watchlist.
And to the above collection, we must now add Turin 2018. See the relish with which Mourinho goads the Juve fans afterwards, the same fans who had spent the evening serenading him with chants of “figlio di puttana” (“son of a whore”) and “il triplete, mettilo nel culo”, which roughly translates as “stick your Treble up your a**e”. Spot the United official dragging him away from a confrontation with Leonardo Bonucci and Rodrigo Bentancur because Mourinho is enjoying himself far too much. Notice the thin smile with which he teases a reporter who questions him about the gesture. To watch Mourinho on Wednesday night was to become reacquainted with the man one Arsenal website describes as “history’s greatest monster”.
It’s a moniker you suspect would please Mourinho greatly. Whether you found his antics agreeably cathartic, good fun or a curiously infantile gesture for a 55-year-old father of two will depend, I guess, on your preexisting opinion of him. But this was one of those rare occasions where even the sideshow failed to tarnish the lustre of the show itself: a supreme Mourinho ambush, a throwback to his halcyon days, the ageing rocker dusting off his black leathers, shoving a marrow down his trousers and belting out one valedictory classic.
There was the usual fug of misinformation and disinformation: his ludicrous claim ahead of the game, for example, that the match “didn’t matter” because it would be the final two games that decided United’s qualification. Like many of Mourinho’s press conference statements, it was a bare-faced lie, albeit a lie with a tactical purpose. By painting the opposition as the untouchable maestros and his own club (annual revenue €675m) as the hopeless makeweights, Mourinho was exactly where he likes to be: cornered and written off, albeit written off partly by himself and in a corner largely of his own construction.
And though what happened next will have been described in some places as a shock, some Mourinhowatchers may well have been able to spot a familiar pattern in the masquerade. It doesn’t always work, of course – remarkably, telling elite footballers they’re not good enough can meet with mixed results – but sometimes, when you get a decent start and the opposition miss a few chances, when the nerves begin to fray, Mourinho’s teams can turn the tide in spectacular fashion.
His substitutions paid off big time:
Juan Mata scoring the equaliser and Marouane Fellaini playing a big part in the winner. His selection of Alexis Sanchez in the No 9 role gave them the sort of energy and thrust they often lack with Romelu Lukaku. And on the touchline, Mourinho was a brooding, wordless presence: the man who has already set all the traps, and is now waiting to watch the world burn.
And of course, if Juventus had been a little surer on the trigger, all of this would have been for naught. But win or lose, this would still have been one of United’s best performances of the season; certainly the most complete, given the alarming way they have been starting games this season.
Talk of his dismissal, so urgent and pressing just a few weeks ago, has been swept aside. The real tests lie ahead, particularly for a board who you suspect care less about progress
Talk of his dismissal, so pressing just a few weeks ago, has been swept aside
in this season’s Champions League than qualification for the next. But for now, the biggest ego in football is still just about in business.
For some reason Mourinho has always needed something to define himself against. Anything will do, really: Unicef, the club doctor, Gary Neville, referees, the FA. Being the establishment never really suited him: his two Champions League titles, after all, came at relatively unfancied clubs from outside football’s super-elite. Now, through a combination of circumstance and skilful PR, he’s back where he feels most comfortable. Was this victory one final flourish from a manager still in terminal decline, or the start of something new, bold and sinister?
Sunday’s derby against Manchester City will give us a better idea. (© Independent News Service)