Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the latest target of Jose Mourinho’s mind games
There may be parallels between Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho — right down to their youthful good looks and snazzy wardrobe — but they end when it comes to mind games.
Guardiola is so well drilled he wheels out the manager-speak when he senses the imminence of pitfall questioning and slaloms around controversy, whereas Mourinho, largely by choice, snowploughs through it.
It was inevitable that, on Saturday, less than one hundred hours before the biggest clash of the first round of Champions League matches, Inter Milan v Barcelona, both men would be asked about the opposition. And while the Barcelona coach kept his reserve, Mourinho waded in, saying that, “Eto’o is the best striker with whom I have ever worked.”
Fighting talk, given that the list of strikers with whom he has worked includes a certain Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whom he sent to Barcelona in return for Eto’o plus £35 million in cash. The implication of the words of the “Special One” seem clear: I got a better player, plus a whole wad of money, I’m laughing all the way to the bank.
But Mourinho, of course, is far too clever to make such a crass statement. Which is why in the same press conference he said: “You know me, I always believe that my players are better than anybody else’s.”
In one fell swoop he deflected attention on to himself, sent a barbed message to Barcelona and reaffirmed his unquestioning belief in the ability of his men. There’s a reason why his pre-game nous will be studied one day by football historians. Indeed, in that sense, he’s the polar opposite to Ibrahimovic, who seems to have a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
During his protracted transfer to Barcelona, he sent Valentine messages to the Catalan press — “Who wouldn’t want to play for a club like Barça?” — which annoyed the Inter support. He annoyed them further by kissing the Barcelona badge on his first day. But last week he really hit the Nerazzurri where it hurts.
“True fans know what I did for Inter,” he said. “Before I arrived, the club hadn’t won a title in 17 years. With me, we won three straight.”
Not the most elegant thing to say (nor the most accurate: the courts handed Inter a title before he arrived as a result of the 2006 Calciopoli scandal). But also, the kind of comment that can come back to haunt you. Inter’s response was left to Marco Materazzi, not the kind of man who shies away from a fight. “The best way to hurt him is total indifference,” he said. “Ibra did help us win three titles, but it would be wise of him to remember that we were a team.”
In fact, you wonder if, given the circumstances, Mourinho won’t be tempted to dust off Materazzi — who, at 36, has been largely on the shelf of late — and deploy “the Matrix” on Ibrahimovic come Wednesday evening. It may be the only way to unsettle the big Swede, who is feeling increasingly at home with the European champions. On Saturday he scored a tap-in and set up Lionel Messi’s header (wasn’t it supposed to work the other way around?) as Barcelona won 2-0 away to Getafe.
Guardiola knows that integrating a player with Ibrahimovic’s skill-set into a finely tuned machine such as Barcelona’s will take time, if only because at Inter the whole team was built around him. At Barcelona, on the other hand, he needs to share the limelight and be a humble participant in the weekly magic show of Messi, Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández.
In deciding to axe Eto’o for Ibrahimovic, Guardiola took a sizeable gamble. Conventional wisdom dictates that you don’t tinker with a successful side. But then the payoff could be huge. If Barcelona retain the European Cup, his place in managerial history will be secure, just as his place as a player already is. The most recent team to do so were Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan, 20 years ago. Equal them and you become the stuff of legend.
Yet, the stakes may be even higher for Mourinho. The pressure to deliver the club game’s biggest prize is even greater. Even Fabio Capello, speaking on Thursday, conceded: “Inter must win the Champions League.”
Despite winning the domestic title last season, Mourinho’s adversaries still point to his European record with Inter and the paltry two wins — against Panathinaikos and Anorthosis Famagusta — in eight matches.
Absurdly, he could run away with the Serie A crown once again and still have people calling for his head. But that’s the pressure you live with every day when you’re the Special One.
