Jose Mourinho, the self-acclaimed ‘Special One’, is back in
English football. Most of us will welcome him as he provides some much-needed
spice, plus a serious challenge to the Manchester duopoly, in the post-Ferguson
Premier League. His platinum-plated arrogance both rankles and amuses in equal
measure.
His CV is pretty impressive with success in his native Portugal,
Italy and of course in his previous incarnation at Stamford Bridge. He is in
select company, having won The Champions League with two different clubs and
domestic titles in four different countries. Real Madrid may be a slight blot
but he did squeeze in a Copa del Rey in his first season and took away
Barcelona’s grip on La Liga in his second. As failures go that is not a
calamity.
So there is little doubt he is good at his job, ask Ibrahimovic,
the Swedish behemoth fawns on his managerial powers, as revealed in his
modestly, intriguingly entitled autobiography ‘I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic’ “That
guy says whatever he wants. I like him. He’s the leader of his army.” He makes
his teams difficult to beat and sometimes difficult to watch but Chelsea fans
would, like most others, choose substance over style. Ask any Arsenal fan.
But there is the small matter of his whingeing, which
materialised after Bayern Munich's recent squeaky, slightly fortuitous Super
Cup win. Jose bleated about “this is my history with Uefa for a long, long time” and how the devils incarnate
have been cooking up trouble to undermine Mourinho. Poor old Jose has had to
contend with this endless campaign to do him down. Well Uefa may not be
everybody’s cup of tea or anybody’s favourite governing body for European
football but not even Platini's henchmen would stoop that low.
No this is just another example of the persecution complex that
most leading managers employ to rally their troops. It's us against the rest of
the world, let's gather round and batten down the hatches. The enemy are
everywhere, we are surrounded. Mourinho also employs the trait of all
successful club managers, Ferguson & Wenger pre-2005, that of partial
vision whereby one develops an incredible capacity to view things through one
eye.
That single rather squint eye only sees selective moments from
the game and also distorts anything outside that view. The result is that any
loss is the fault of the officials, referees, assistant referees, technology,
FA, UEFA - the usual suspects. You will never hear any admission of failure or
culpability laid at the feet of the team or woe betide, the manager. This is an
attitude akin to that of a playground 'it's not my fault, sir it was that
horrible big boy Webb. He's a cheat.' Alright Jose, now be a good boy, sit back
down at your desk and try not to throw those toys out of the pram again.
