JOSE: I’M THE FRAGILE ONE
Spurs’ boss opens up for documentary
JOSE MOURINHO reckons modern-day football managers are the most fragile of beasts.
The Portuguese knows all too well how precarious life as a boss can be.
After all, the fact he has been a serial winner throughout his career hasn’t stopped him being axed from his last five jobs.
Chelsea, twice, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Manchester United all parted company with Mourinho not long after he had led them to major honours.
So he knows as well as anyone that, in football, you can be the cock of the walk one minute and a feather duster the next.
“Being a football manager is one of the most difficult jobs in this moment,” said Mourinho, ahead of tomorrow’s release of the Amazon Prime documentary All Or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur.
“It’s probably one of the only jobs where the people who work for you are very rich.
“You cannot lead by anything else other than being good and every single manager has to be really good to get the players’ respect, and they have to prove it every day.
“Managers are not as powerful as they were before.
Fragile
“In fact, you are fragile. You’re fragile in the eyes of the media. You’re fragile in the eyes of the fans.
“The players, in the majority of cases, can also feel that you are fragile, because they normally stay in the club.
“So the manager today is in a very, very fragile position.”
The fact it is all so precarious and high pressured makes you wonder why Mourinho — a millionaire several times over who has managed two of the world’s three biggest football clubs and won every piece of major silverware on offer at club level — keeps coming back for more.
But he insists he is far too young to retire and can’t wait to get started on his first full season at Tottenham after replacing Mauricio Pochettino in November.
The Special One added: “People think I’m very old because I have been at this level since 2002.
“I’m not very old. I’m very young for a football manager.
“It’s the kind of job where you become better with experience and not worse.
“I’ll give you an example from the last match, against Crystal Palace.
“Five, six, seven years ago, I would have managed it in a different way.
“When Crystal Palace scored, that was the only moment I wanted to know the score of the Wolves and Chelsea game. My first feeling was, ‘At 1-1, we
have to win, we need to win. I’m going to play Dele Alli and I’m going to replace Serge Aurier and go for it’.
“But I know Wolves are losing 2-0. I understand the way Chelsea normally play and how important the game was.
Calm
“So in the middle of all that pressure, I was calm, I had time to think, to process my ideas.
“I made different changes. I am not impulsive anymore.
“I am more in control of my emotions.”
That last statement might come as a massive surprise to the referees who still feel a flea in their ears when the game isn’t going the way Mourinho
wants, but the Special One is adamant that is the case.
He said: “I think better, decide better.
“As a coach, the older you get, t here’s an accumulation of experience.
“I’m not over the moon when things are going very well and I’m not in hell when things are going badly.
“I always keep a balance and it’s very important for the players to feel that balance.
“If you win, keep your feet on the ground. You are not the king of the universe.
“When you lose, you are not a disaster, so stay calm and in emotional control.”