One match for Mourinho to steer clear of the nightmare
Manchester United manager has staked everything on winning the Europa League, and defeat would be a disaster both for the club and for his reputation The final next week is probably the biggest match of his career
One Premier League manager likens his work to life on a desert island. When they start their career, the island is big and inviting. Lots of people want to be on it – it is different, new, exciting. When they taste success, the island seems even bigger and even more people want to be there, basking in the reflected glory. But as they get older, the island reduces in size, partly because they become less trusting, there are failures and setbacks, scores to settle, and they accumulate battle scars that provide constant reminders.
For some, the island becomes smaller more quickly, and, right now, Jose Mourinho appears one such manager. If he fails to win the Europa League it will shrink even further, the blame game will accelerate and Mourinho will have seen many of his arguments, constructed with a politician’s shrewdness, demolished.
He can blame fixture congestion, fatigue, injuries, officialdom, the players he inherited, but he will have taken Manchester United from fifth to sixth – in fact, they have gone back three places in three seasons, having finished fourth in Louis van Gaal’s first campaign – with just the League Cup to look back on. As much as he has tried to include it, the Community Shield does not count, and even Mourinho has started to acknowledge that.
It means that, while he stated oddly last week that the Europa League semi-final second leg at home to Celta Vigo was the biggest game in United’s history – something he later qualified – the final against Ajax a week tomorrow is probably the biggest match in his managerial career. Or, at least, the biggest match since that evening in Gelsenkirchen in 2004 when Porto defeated Monaco in the Champions League final. Mourinho’s career was catapulted into the managerial stratosphere, he tore the medal from his neck and swaggered off to Stamford Bridge. The deal to take over at Chelsea was already all but agreed, but there was still a chance Roman Abramovich would change his mind, might even have plumped for Didier Deschamps, coach of the losing finalists, if Porto had not won what Mourinho called “the cup with the big ears”.
Wayne Rooney was splashed across the front page of The Sun On Sunday allegedly spending heavily in a Monaco casino, but he does not appear to be the only big gambler at United. Mourinho has bet the house – bet his reputation – on winning the Europa League and gaining entry into the Champions League by that improbable route.
How he would love it if it also meant that of the six big managerial beasts in the Premier League – with an acknowledgement to Ronald Koeman at Everton – Arsène Wenger were the only one to then miss out. But that would be a glorious aside for him to refer to once he has got the job done.
Imagine if United do not beat Ajax? Mourinho has argued that his approach in recent weeks, with injuries and tiredness biting, has been logical. It was either three games to negotiate to win the Europa League, or try to claw back a top-four finish in the Premier League. He went for the former.