Self-made Mourinho always the outsider looking in
Portuguese finds himself cast in a new but still familiar role as a pundit for Sky, says Daniel Zeqiri
He never had the attributes to make it as a player and that informed him as a coach
Gazing through panes of glass at the stage he once commanded, Jose Mourinho’s new life as a Sky Sports pundit casts him in the role of a lifetime: football’s irreverent outsider.
Just like all those years ago when studying sports science at a Lisbon university or working as a translator for Sir Bobby Robson, top-level football is something for Mourinho to observe from afar while adulation and respect is lavished upon lesser mortals.
Boy does it sting, as a recent social media video of a lachrymose Mourinho reflecting on his summer with no periodised training to plan and no tempestuous press conferences to orchestrate showed.
“I miss my football,
I have the fire,” Mourinho told Sky Sports as he was unveiled as their splashy new signing and spoke of his desire to return to management. On the outside looking in is the psychological dynamic that has fuelled Mourinho’s coaching career.
The script is a wellworn one across many spheres of life: the self-made man who proves there is room at the top, usurping the silver spoon-fed members of the upper crust with his intelligence, knowledge and charm.
Think Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File but with laminated set-piece routines.
Breaking into football’s aristocracy while sticking two fingers up at them has brought Mourinho two Champions Leagues and first division titles in four major leagues. He is, friend or foe, one of the greatest managers of the modern era.
His status as an insubordinate gatecrasher might just be the source of some of his neurosis, however. For while Mourinho had the medals, it always seemed to grate that a commodity money cannot buy escaped him: class. Footballing class that is, or, to borrow a phrase from the man himself, “football heritage”.
The deference afforded Arsene Wenger, an adopted English gentleman in all but name, used to infuriate. He was never granted omnipotence at a single club like Sir Alex Ferguson. Unlike Pep Guardiola or Johan Cruyff, there was no instant gravitas thanks to a glittering and artistic playing career.
Mourinho never had the athletic attributes to make it as a player, and that too has informed his identity as a coach. Generational difference may be at play, but since the second half of his spell at Real Madrid, his relationship with footballers has become increasingly fractious.
The former Chelsea and Porto manager’s experimentation with confrontational leadership, pushing his charges to the limit in search of a reaction, has had diminishing returns.
Many Chelsea and Inter Milan players will speak about Mourinho with something approaching love, so the attritional aspects of his character can be overstated. So much of Mourinho’s behaviour though makes sense when you think of him as a frustrated footballer – a man who never had his time under bright lights and was keen to make up for lost time.
Running down the touchline in celebration at Old Trafford; shaking hands with his Chelsea staff before full-time at Highbury; taking his seat in the dugout before the players emerge to ensure maximum on-camera time. All of these are forms of showboating, like the stepovers Mourinho missed out on.
An irony then, that he should spend his time in exile surrounded by former professionals in a television studio – an all-too-chummy milieu where medals are currency and thighs are slapped.
What of Mourinho the pundit? We have not seen him since he dissected Chelsea and Manchester United, but the signs were promising. The technical knowledge is without question, and he adds impressive detail on the challenges of facing the best around today rather than rose-tinted war stories about rivalries long gone. His discussion with Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville about the difference between changing systems and unchanging principles was a corker.
It is not where Mourinho belongs, but then marching out of step is nothing new for football’s outsider.