Twelve minutes of self-pitying claptrap that exposed Jose’s delusions in all their towering majesty
ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S Gettysburg Address lasted two minutes. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech lasted 17 minutes. John F Kennedy’s Inauguration Speech lasted 14 minutes. Winston Churchill’s ‘Fight on the Beaches’ speech lasted 34 minutes.
Acclaimed as football’s answer to all of them, Jose Mourinho’s self-serving, self-aggrandising, self-regarding, self-pitying, melodramatic, hard-luck claptrap that passed for his attempt at oratory on Friday afternoon lasted 12 minutes. His only theme was Jose Mourinho. He used his moment on the stage to deliver a homage to himself.
Ask not what Mourinho can do for Manchester United but what Manchester United can do for him. His was a dystopian vision of a great football club as a vehicle for a narcissist. His was a speech that denigrated United so that he could vindicate himself. Some managers subjugate themselves to their clubs. Mourinho asks that the club subjugates itself to him.
So it was 12 minutes of me, me, me. Twelve minutes of excuses for that lame, laboured, dour apology of a performance against Sevilla last week. Twelve minutes of excuses about why he’s been blown away by Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City this season.
A great speech? Please. Mark Anthony’s funeral oration in Julius Caesar was a great speech. ‘Friends, Glazers, countrymen, lend me your cash,’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Twelve minutes that vindicated the worst fears of those within the United hierarchy and fan base who had not wanted Mourinho in the first place. Twelve minutes that put the King Kong-sized ego of the man in the spotlight and exposed his bitterness and his delusions in all their towering majesty.
Twelve minutes in which he droned on and on about the heritage of England’s most famous club and reduced it, conveniently and shamelessly, to six years in the desert following their loss to Barcelona in the 2011 final. In his self-obsession, he could not see the disrespect to his club.
Mourinho talked about United as though they were minnows. He talked as if the fans of the club that has a claim to call itself the biggest in the world had no right to think that the £300million he has spent over the last two years might earn them a place in the conversation when the Champions League reaches its latter stages.
He talked, too, as if this has always been United’s fate. That is what really grates. It suits his narrative to portray United as a plucky little club who are lucky to have him and who only have a chance of rising above their natural place amid the poor men of Europe if he works his magic. It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.
United, lest we forget, have reached a Champions League final more recently than him. So when he talked about Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus as being the teams that always reach the Champions League quarter-finals, it is worth remembering that from 1997 to 2011, United made the quarters or better 12 times in 15 seasons. They won it twice. They made the final twice more.
United’s heritage is built on European glory. They were pioneers. The triumph at Wembley in 1968, ten years after the Munich Air Disaster, with Sir Matt Busby back at the helm, is probably the greatest, most emotional story in the history of English football. That’s United’s European heritage.
So forget the 12 minutes as some feat of oratory. As speeches go it was a cross between Jack Nicholson urging Wendy to stop swinging the bat in The Shining and Steve Coogan listing the years no one died in The Pool Supervisor. It was an attempt to burnish a reputation that has lost its lustre.
It was also the moment when Mourinho turned into someone fans poke fun at. Mourinho’s achievements have made him immune to that before. Love him or hate him, his record has always spoken the loudest. But this was downright funny. If it was reminiscent of any speech at all, it was the ‘Fact’ rant of Rafa Benitez, so widely mocked by United fans at the time.
Mourinho was a great manager once and maybe he will be again, but right now Guardiola, in particular, is making him look like a dinosaur, a giant of the past. Guardiola’s success and the joy it is bringing to those who love pure football, is eating Mourinho up.
In his self-absorption, what Mourinho seemed unable to grasp in his 12-minute rant was that he has not been brought to United to continue the recent record of mediocrity in Europe, a subject upon which he has become such a diligent student. The Glazers have given him nearly £300m to change that record, not to perpetuate it.
Instead, what he delivered was a team who lost meekly to a Sevilla side sitting fifth in La Liga.
In the darkest hour after the Sevilla defeat, Mourinho claimed such defeats were not ‘anything new’ for the club. It allowed him to drop in the fact that he, himself, the great Mourinho, had humbled United at their home, both with Porto and Real Madrid.
In some ways, nothing has changed. Mourinho’s still humbling United.
It’s just that this time, he’s doing it from the inside.