JOSE MOURINHO
Jose Mourinho is one of the greatest managers in the world. Football managers, not to be confused with American football coaches or baseball managers.
Association Football (Soccer) with an estimated 4 billion fans is the most popular sport in the world. Cricket (2.5 billion); Field Hockey (2 billion); and Tennis (1 billion) wrap up the impressive billion-fan panoply. Volleyball, Table Tennis and Basketball are not far behind. Then there is America’s historical national pastime, baseball.
The point I suppose is this: a shared love for association football is something which one-half of the earth’s population enjoys. Nearly 400 billion people.
Baseball aficionados know recently retired manager Bruce Bochy and triple threat (Tampa Bay, the Cubs and now the Angels) skipper Joe Maddon. Also Tito Francona, A. J. Hinch, Dave Roberts, Alex Cora and Aaron Boone. And certainly the greatest managers in the history of the sport with Connie Mack, Bucky Harris, Casey Stengel, John McGraw, Joe McCarthy, Walter Alston, Earl Weaver, Sparky Anderson, Davey Johnson, Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa and Joe Torre among them. The game has an estimated 500 million global followers and enjoys its highest levels of popularity in the United States, the Caribbean and Japan. Fans from these locales know baseball managers.
But 500 million is one-eighth of 4 billion. The world knows Jose Mourinho.
[And today’s pressing question seems to be, will Jose Mourinho be part of the Old Trafford landscape at this time next year? Answer below.]
Who is this guy? Even casual football fans in America have heard of Sir Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola, two of the greatest managers of all time. Less recognizable perhaps but no less heralded are Rinus Michels, Bob Paisley, Udo Lattek and Sir Matt Busby. Jose Mourinho has been climbing this exalted ladder of football manager demigods two rungs at a time. And not unobtrusively or without pomp and circumstance.
To be described as understated, discreet or gracious would be to describe someone else. Few other managers have tooted their own horn as often or as loudly. The fiery native of Portugal and self-proclaimed “Special One” is in it to win it, not to make friends.
And win he has. He’s one of only five coaches (sorry, it’s an American word choice which manifests all too naturally) to have won the UEFA Champions League made up of top-tier European clubs with two sides, Porto and Inter Milan. He is also one of yet another five to have claimed league titles in four different countries — Portugal, England, Italy and Spain. He helped mold Chelsea from perennial underachievers into Premier League powerhouses.
But acrimony and classless behavior have come with it nearly every step of the way. Mourinho’s unbridled passion for winning does not extend to popularity contests. Says Rory Smith of The New York Times, “he is, as he himself has so kindly pointed out quite recently, one of the finest coaches of his generation; few of his peers boast a record quite so worthy of the respect he often feels he is denied.”
It seems as though Jose Mourinho doesn’t much care for the media. To be more precise, he doesn’t like criticism when things aren’t going well or as planned. Remarks Smith, “Mourinho’s public stance has always been that a hyperbolic news media is to blame for this culture, where one defeat is a disaster, where a humdrum misunderstanding is a diplomatic incident. That there is an element of hypocrisy to that claim — Mourinho, more than most managers, is a media creature — should not detract from its inherent accuracy…As he has done before, [he] would take great pleasure in once again proving the ‘football geniuses’ in the news media to be the know-nothings he believes them — us — to be.”
In order to do that, he must win. He knows that; he knows how to do that.
And it’s a good thing. His brilliant coaching successes aside, Jose Mourinho is in trouble behind the touchline at the moment. He’s been out of the game before during his illustrious managerial career — most recently after a poor run in his second stint at Chelsea — and is staring down that barrel again.
The manager of Manchester United since 27 May 2016 is not winning matches fast or often enough. A poor start to the 2018-’19 season found ManU nine points behind Manchester City and Liverpool, seven in arrears of Chelsea. They sat 10th. in the Premier League Standings, smack-dab in the middle of the 20-club circuit. The side has lost three of their seven matches including a 3–1 defeat at the hands of West Ham on Saturday (29 September).
ManU is closer to the relegation zone than to first place while enduring United’s worst start in 29 years. Since the beginning of last season, ManU has dropped 30 Premier League points to the likes of Huddersfield, Stoke, Leicester, Burnley. Southampton, Newcastle, West Brom, Brighton, West Ham and Wolves alone.
Drifting and circling while their rivals are charging forward has engendered unrest at Old Trafford. Well-publicized differences with star midfielder Paul Pogba — whom Mourinho stripped of his captaincy — and Alexis Sanchez among others have only added fuel to the flames.
Repeatedly questioning Mourinho’s tactics and strategy in fact landed Sanchez deep in the bowels of the manager’s dog house and resulted in the world-class 29-year-old former Arsenal back being dropped from United’s squad for the trip to West Ham. By rule he was unable to even come off the bench, an embarrassing scenario for all involved to say the least.
Pogba, the talented Frenchman and recent World Cup champion was substituted at West Ham after what Mourinho considered to be another sub-par effort and has been vocal in his criticism of the club’s direction. He feels that Mourinho’s systems and style of play undermine his skills and artistry and resents being criticized for that. ManU’s record signing has reportedly told his teammates that he will be gone in January — unless Mourinho is gone first.
When an elite athlete’s abilities begin to diminish, he or she is often the first to know and the last to accept the reality. To acknowledge this and ultimately embrace it is not to give up or to quit but rather to concede that life goes on and time waits for no one.
The same is true for the legendary manager or coach. Jose Mourinho’s legacy is secure. What once worked so famously is no longer is working. The engine doesn’t purr, it sputters. What made Mourinho great — defensive concentration and solidity, attacking efficiency, the siege mentality and inspiring the troops — is gone. He is fast becoming yesterday’s news.
His voice is no longer heard. It happens and it has happened to him in previous stops along the way. Top-tier footballers command extraordinary, brain-addling scads of money. And there are many of them, a handful dotting United’s roster. There is one manager who may be alienating his players but more importantly is not winning.
Whom do you think will be hitting the bricks?
[Answer to today’s pressing question asked above:
On 18 December 2018 Jose Mourinho was relieved of his duties as manager of Manchester United. On 20 November 2019 he signed a four-year contract to manage Tottenham Hotspur F.C.]
