SCOTTISH FOOTBALL DOESN'T NEED A CLONE OF MOURINHO
THE moment he started handing out copies of the opposition team before April’s visit to Aberdeen, the alarm bells started ringing. It is an old Jose Mourinho trick, most notably performed ahead of an explosive Champions League meeting between Chelsea and Barcelona in 2005, which ended in a 2-1 defeat for the Portuguese and a full UEFA investigation into his claims that Barca coach Frank Rijkaard had been in the referee’s room at half-time.
Building a siege mentality and demanding absolute loyalty from his players is another Mourinho tactic. As is mounting campaigns of psychological pressure against rival managers.
Starting to sound a little familiar? Pedro Caixinha’s printed sheets listing Derek McInnes’ first XI, handed out to journalists at Rangers’ Auchenhowie base, seemed a little perplexing at the time. But given the week just gone, it is tempting to see something of a pattern emerging in the Ibrox boss’s behaviour.
Aberdeen are in Caixinha’s sights ahead of next season and, already, he will feel he has made significant headway in exposing chinks in the surprisingly sensitive McInnes armour. It is unlikely, whatever was or was not said over their glass of wine inside Ibrox on Wednesday night, he will give up here.
Caixinha’s largely successful spell in Mexico with Santos Laguna was marked by regular run-ins with opposition coaches.
Criticism of referees also became a speciality. Again, something not exactly alien to Mourinho.
The game has yet to begin in earnest with Caixinha in Scotland, but it is bubbling up deliciously.
McInnes now looks dangerously close to dabbing egg off his chops after stating Ryan Jack had no interest in moving to Rangers.
Kilmarnock feel Caixinha was disrespectful towards them earlier in the season by naming his team two days before a trip to Rugby Park. Neil Lennon, hardly Scottish football’s equivalent of Kofi Annan, has already put himself in McInnes’ corner and branded Caixinha ‘average, to say the least’.
Caixinha has helped create this situation. His talk of being under attack from all angles will chime with the Rangers fans. His call for warriors hints at a new-look team that will be more physical, more direct, more unpopular.
It is the kind of backs-to-the-wall scenario his close friend Mourinho would undoubtedly relish.
Perhaps it should be no surprise that there are parallels to be drawn between Caixinha’s approach and that of his mentor. He took his coaching badges with the SFA on Mourinho’s say-so. Mourinho’s recommendation got him the job at Santos Laguna. And according to Caixinha, they have remained in regular contact.
Caixinha has to know where to stop, though. He cannot replicate the tactics previously employed by the current Manchester United manager here. Scottish football does not need it. And Rangers, in their current fragile state and with the need to regain some political power, do not need it either.
This is a country, remember, capable of holding a full-scale governmental inquiry because Ally McCoist whispered something in Neil Lennon’s ear at the end of an Old Firm game.
Wind-ups and theatre are to be welcomed, but Mourinho goes way beyond that. He is a genius, but he becomes toxic.
Damaging everything and everyone around him.
Time spent in Spain during his final season at Real Madrid — waiting, in the main, for one of my sons to be born — left the distinct impression that the game over there just tired of his antics.
Sticking his finger in the eye of the then Barcelona assistant Tito Vilanova crossed a line. Effectively accusing referees and even UEFA of pro-Barcelona corruption also overstepped the mark. By the end, Real Madrid had been torn apart from the inside out thanks to an acrimonious fall-out out with star goalkeeper Iker Casillas.
Casillas felt worsening relations between Barca and Real Madrid were having a negative effect on the Spanish national team and approached Xavi and Carles Puyol to address the matter.
Attempting to bridge that divide, breaking the siege mentality, created a rift with Mourinho and split the club in half.
Both of Mourinho’s spells at Chelsea ended sourly too.
Perhaps at the time it was a price worth paying for those clubs. He won trophies. Got things done in a flash. Rangers, though, looks like a longer-term project, something that has to be grown and nurtured from the base rather than burning brightly before burning out.
The worry is that Caixinha has a similarly limited shelf life to his compatriot. Even at Santos Laguna, months after winning the Clausura, he walked out after less than three years in charge during a twominute press conference in which he read a statement and refused to detail his reasons.
It looks sure to be a fascinating period with him at Ibrox. Given the paucity of the squad, he cannot be properly judged on the field until he has his own team in place.
Off the field, his forthright approach has brought some welcome and diverting theatre so far. After all, a number of the managers in the SPFL, whilst perfectly pleasant and courteous, host the kind of press conferences in which curling up and dying often seems the only way to end the agony.
‘I admire Jose Mourinho,’ said Caixinha shortly before arriving in Glasgow. ‘He is a friend of mine, but I don’t try to copy him.’
For everyone’s sake, let’s hope that’s the truth. You should never go full Mourinho. Not here.