Jose Mourinho: the cases for and against
You can expect to hear a lot about Jose Mourinho over the next few weeks. Playing in the Champions' League final and possibly moving to the world's biggest football club will do that. Plus, of course, there is nobody - and I mean nobody - in the game who has such a talent for putting his point across and turning the media into some kind of megaphone (for better or worse, sometimes it backfires).
There are many who think Mourinho is the greatest manager in the world, perhaps the greatest in history. There are some who think he's been largely the beneficiary of being in the right place at the right time and that he simply has sold himself better than most. Is the truth at either extreme? Or is it somewhere in between? You be the judge.
THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION
OK, first, let's dispense with the records. He won two league titles and a domestic cup at Porto. Great. Fact is, when you manage Porto, you have a pretty good chance of winning the title. Porto won 14 of the last 20 Portuguese championships. Kerry Katona could manage Porto and she would probably win the title. Jesualdo Ferreira, the most recent Porto boss to win the title and a man Mourinho once compared to a donkey, won three straight. So what? By the way, Porto were found guilty of attempting to bribe match officials during the 2003-04 season - when Mourinho won his second Portuguese title - and later docked six points.
Admittedly, he did win the Uefa Cup and the Champions League while at Porto. But look closer. He had a ridiculously easy run to the Uefa Cup, facing just two sides from Europe's top five leagues - Lens and Lazio - before cutting it very close against Martin O'Neill's Celtic in the final. He clearly got the rub of the green the following year in the Champions League too, especially against Manchester United (Tim Howard spilling the ball, Paul Scholes unfairly flagged offside). And he had the luxury of playing Monaco in the final.
You want to talk Chelsea? Well, no club in history spent as much money as they did between 2003, just before his arrival, and 2006. And it's not as if he took over a team of numpties. Under Claudio Ranieri - the man he loves to mock - Chelsea had finished second the year before while reaching the semi-finals of the Champions' League (which, incidentally, is as far as Mourinho has ever taken the club). Yes, he also won an FA Cup and a couple of League Cups. That's what having one of the most expensive teams ever assembled will do. How about the fact that in three years at Stamford Bridge he never once managed to get them to the semi-final of the Champions League? Heck, even David O'Leary managed to do that. And if Mourinho tells you - as he did last weekend - that the Premier League competition was far tougher back then, don't be fooled. Mikael Silvestre and Kieran Richardson were getting plenty of playing time for Manchester United in 2005-06. Liverpool finished level on points with Bolton in 2004-05. And Arsenal failed to make the quarter-finals of the Champions League in two of Mourinho's three full seasons at Chelsea.
What about Inter? Didn't he turn them into a dominant force, both in Italy and in Europe? Yeah, right. Inter had won three straight Serie A titles when he arrived, no change in serivce there. Except, perhaps, for the fact that in their final year BEFORE Mourinho they gained more points than they did in their first two seasons AFTER Mourinho. What's that you say? Mourinho was signed to bring European success? Ok, let's look at his record in the Champions League with Inter. Played 20, won nine, drew five, lost six. Among those were some of the most turgid perfromances in recent memory including a 3-3 draw with something called Anorthosis and home defeats to Manchester United and Panathinaikos. The most frustrating thing is not so much that he has simply played dull, defensive football, it's that he passes it off for something brilliant. His game plan in his latter years at Chelsea consisted of hoofing it long to Didier Drogba and defending in numbers. In his first season at Inter it was all about defending in numbers, giving the ball to Zlatan Ibrahimovic and waiting for him to do something. Only this year are we starting to see something rational. But it took lots of trial and error to get there. Because, you see, tactically he's really only in his comfort zone when he employs the usual defend-and-counter attritition strategy. Deviate from that and he's lost. He played four different formations at Inter and, except for the most recent ones, all of them produced horrid football. Sure, it was effective, but that was largely due to the appalling state of Italy's other so-called big clubs, above all Milan and Juventus. The fact that Roma, a side whose best player missed a quarter of the season and which has been run on a shoestring for the past three years came within 45 minutes of becoming champions tells you all you need to know.
Put him up against a manager with some tactical nous and players who can execute (even bad players) and he struggles, as evidenced by Inter's performances against Catania away (a 1-3 defeat), Siena at home (two goals in the final two minutes to salvage a win) and Bari away (two late goals, including a dubious penalty).
Sure, he'll tell you that referees are out to get him, that nobody in Italy likes him. His acolytes will point out that the owner of a rival club, Silvio Berlusconi, also happens to be prime minister and owns three TV networks. The latter is true, but if Berlusconi were using his considerable powers to help his club, AC Milan, he's doing a rotten job, given that they have won one league title in the past decade. What's more, there are about a dozen TV networks he does not own, nor does he own any of the three daily sports newspapers or the three biggest selling dailies in the land. And, in fact, despite his constant whingeing, Inter comfortably came out ahead this season in terms of refereeing mistakes.
He makes it seem as if he's some kind of transfer guru because Inter have six new signings in their starting XI. Fine. But Lucio was very much a club signing (Mourinho wanted Ricardo Carvalho, as it turns out, it's a good thing he did not get his way), Motta was an add-on in the Diego MIlito deal, Goran Pandev is a former Inter player whom the club had been trying to bring back for ages, Samuel Eto'o was a makeweight in the Ibrahimovic sale. What he doesn't tell you is that he also spent big on Mancini and Ricardo Quaresma, both of whom were absolute duds at Inter. Much like Mateja Kezman, Claudio Pizarro and Khalid Boulahrouz at Chelsea. But, of course, Mourinho's acolytes don't like to talk about those guys. Instead, they'll tell you that his evil interfering chairman, Roman Abramovich, "forced" him to take Andriy Shevchenko. Poor Mourinho. Rather than trying to make it work, he turned Shevchenko into a scapegoat.
Bottom line? He's a good manager, not a great one. He managed the biggest spending club in Portugal and won, the biggest spending club in England and won, the biggest spending club in Italy and won. But he has been to the Champions League semi-finals four times in his entire career. (And, when he left Chelsea, Avram Grant took them to within a penalty kick of winning it all). Nothing special about that.
THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE
No, I'm not going to dismiss his records in Portugal. Sure, Porto may be a dominant team, but before Mourinho's arrival they had not won the league in four years, which is an eternity in those parts. Bottom
line is, he won it, the guys before him did not. Nor, for that matter, did the guy immediately after him. And no matter how much you talk about luck and favourable draws, winning consecutive European trophies with Porto is an outstanding achievement. If it were so easy, it would happen regularly. Or are you suggesting that Mourinho is the only lucky manager out there?
Ranieri did not win a title at Chelsea, despite having equal access to Abramovich's money. Mourinho did. And he did it after 50 years. You want to make cracks about his Champions League performances at Chelsea? In 2004-05 he knocked out Barcelona and Bayern and was only beaten by a "ghost goal". The following year he was screwed by the referees against Barcelona. And in 2006-07 he went out on penalties
to Liverpool. Sounds pretty consistent to me.
Fine, so he inherited a good squad at Chelsea. But the point is that he won stuff and others did not. Not until Carlo Ancelotti arrived and he benefitted from an apalling Liverpool side, an Arsenal side ravaged by injuries and a Manchester United side which sold Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez and replaced them with Antonio Valencia and Michael Owen (says it all, doesn't it?). Shevchenko was imposed on him and
he still found a way to make it work. He changed his system to accommodate him and, no, he did not win the title in 2006-07, but he was still in the running as late as May and he did win two domestic cups.
Don't talk to me about Inter and the titles they won BEFORE he arrived. 2005-06 was handed to them by a tribunal. In 2006-07, Milan had a points penalty and Juventus were in Serie B. And in 2007-08, Juve had just returned to the top flight and Milan, as ever, were more preoccupied with the Champions League. Not quite the same thing as winning against a full complement of opposition, the way he did the last two years.
You don't like the way he plays? First off, it's not defensive, it's balanced. And, in fact, this year, it's balanced offensively. How many sides in Europe play three strikers (Eto'o, Milito and Pandev) plus a guy like Wesley Sneijder? Not many. Is it dull? Well, he's paid to win, not to entertain. And winning is certainly entertaining if you're a fan of whatever club he's managing. Were you not entertained by the masterclass at Stamford Bridge against Chelsea? How about when he demolished Barcelona? He does what needs to be done and, when he needs to do so, he raises his game. That's the mark of a great manager.
Unlike you, I would argue that his time at Inter actually showed intelligence and courage. It took intelligence not to throw the baby out with the bathwater but instead take what worked from his predecessor's side - namely, Ibrahimovic - and make it work for him. (By the way, how well is Ibra doing without Mourinho? Exactly my point). And it took courage to try something new and then admit your mistakes and change. Rather than critciizing him for his ill-fated winger experiment with Mancini and Quaresma, you ought to be lauding him for having the guts to try something different, recognizing it didn't work and then coming up with something new that did work. The last time an Inter manager reached the final of the Champions League was in 1972. That was before any of these Inter players were even born, even Javier Zanetti, who is seemingly a hundred years old. Inter used to be the biggest basket case in world football. Now they're taken seriously. That's what he has brought to this club. Belief.
Maybe he's not a tactical revolutionary, but the simple fact of the matter is that it's not just about giving instructions, it's about getting your players to execute. And when Mourinho speaks, people listen. Don't take my word. Talk to the guys he's managed. Except for Shevchenko and, maybe, Adrian Mutu, they all love him. Why? Because he's a leader of men, because he connects with people in ways others don't. Even the volatile teenage mind of Mario Balotelli, albeit after much struggling, eventually fell and gave in to Mourinho. Balotelli was a model citizen in Inter's last two matches, despite his earlier tantrums. Why? Because Mourinho eventually got through to him.
And it's not just the players, it's the fans. What, you don't think that Chelsea supporters, Double or no Double, wouldn't giftwrap Ancelotti and courier him back to Italy if it meant the return of Mourinho? It's the same story at Inter. The fans adore him. The man has had seven full seasons as a manager. In that time, he has won 16 trophies and, by next Saturday night, it could be 17. At 47, he could become the youngest manager ever to win his second Champions League. And, I might add, he has not lost a home league game since 2002.
He's also far and away the highest paid coach in all of sport. Would that happen if he wasn't Special? The markets don't lie, do they?
He's not a great manager. He's THE great manager of his time, maybe all-time. Those who call him arrogant don't realise that, to quote Kid Rock, "it ain't bragging if you say it then you back it up." He speaks truth to power and endures constant jealousy from lesser men, especially those who begrudge the fact that a guy like him, who never had the natural ability to play the game professionally, has established himself as one of the greatest ever.
Gabriele Marcotti
10 years of FIF
