“A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.” (John Burroughs)
The famous bunker scene in the drama about the final days of the Third Reich, Downfall, has been subjected to endless parody in recent years, Adolf Hitler’s meltdown serving as prime material for on-line comedians looking to get a few cheap laughs. If we forget the spoofs and focus on the original, however, we see that the Führer is in a delusional state, infuriated that his non-existent armies have been unable to hold back the Soviet masses. Still believing in his own infallibility, he points the crazed finger of blame at all but himself.
I was reminded of that scene on Saturday when I read the comments made by José Mourinho after his Real Madrid team drew 0-0 with Deportivo La Coruña at the Riazor. Refusing to acknowledge the home side’s admirable defensive performance or the possible flaws in his own team selection, the Portuguese instead chose to barrack the authorities for not giving Madrid enough time to rest after their Champions League tie last Tuesday.
“I don’t know what would have happened if we had played on Sunday, but it would have been fairer.” he said, “We could have given an extra day off to those who were most tired, we could have trained an extra day.” Mourinho then finished by implying that the RFEF (Spanish Football Association) is engaged in a conspiracy against his team, adding “The calendar is set by people who know what they are doing.”
Of course, such behaviour is hardly surprising coming from Mourinho. Ever since his emergence as a top-level manager he has made outlandish comments in the press, belittled the achievements of others and criticised opponents and officials with his characteristic swaggering confidence. It’s just what he does, so they say.
However, as was pointed out on Twitter last night, the tone of these comments seem to have changed over time. Where some of Mourinho’s sound-bites once had a certain jocular charm about them, they now come across only as the desperate rantings of a very bitter man. Since arriving in Spain the double European Cup-winning manager has stepped up the frequency of his protests, again cultivating that famous “us against them” mentality within his squad, but doing so in a more regularly embittered fashion than he has in the past.
On Saturday evening he also tore into Deportivo’s tactical approach to the game, stating that “Only one team wanted to win, the other worked with all their strength to defend.” Of course, the inconvenient truth that his Inter team made no attempt to take possession of the ball at the Camp Nou last season was expediently ignored, as was the ridiculous logic behind the expectation of Depor to go all-out against an eminently better team than themselves.
We could just dismiss his outbursts as “Mourinho being Mourinho”, but ‘The Special One’ shouldn’t be afforded the luxury of preferential treatment when other managers are widely criticised for doing and saying similar things. Lest we forget, the Portuguese was once responsible for precipitating the death threats which eventually forced referee Anders Frisk to prematurely retire from the game.
Of greater relevance in the present is how Mourinho’s comments are stoking the fires of a Spanish sports press which is already riddled with bias, rumour and innuendo. As Sid Lowe wrote for Sports Illustrated last week, “[Major Spanish sports papers] support their team and campaign on behalf of them. They are fanatical and manipulative. They like to see themselves as an arm of their clubs – part of the fabric. They have become propaganda outlets, not newspapers.”
With football reportage in Spain in such a desperate state, surely the game requires less divisiveness at the top level if this culture of blame and rabid rivalry is to be at least partially eradicated? Mourinho, through his continual criticism of referees and governing bodies, is pandering to this ‘journalistic’ approach, doing the jobs of Marca and AS for them and dragging the international reputation of Real Madrid through the mud in the process.
Arguably the saddest part of the whole scenario is that Mourinho is endangering his own reputation. The Portuguese is without question one of the finest coaches of his generation, perhaps even all time, but his actions could well result in the alienation of swathes of those who admire him for his remarkable achievements in the game. Granted, there have been great managers in the past that have had a similar attitude, but few have been as consistently belligerent as Mourinho.
For the sake of his own reputation and the gnashing teeth of the Spanish football media machine, Mourinho would do well to extricate himself from the insularity of his bunker and stop tediously assigning the blame for his own flaws to others. Until he does that, it looks as though news from La Liga will continue to be dominated by the persecution complexes and narratives of supposed injustice that have polluted it to a greater extent than ever before this season.
The unpleasant sideshow continues.
It’s not only Mourinho’s own reputation that’s at stake. The club, never one to look forwards rather than back (“see that trophy cabinet, son…”), also prides itself on the señorío (very roughly = “gentlemanly bearing” or “integrity”) of its image that it has cultivated over the last five decades or more. Ambitious, yes, but also deeply serious and scrupulously respectful.
Following an unprecedentedly scathing piece in El País this morning about Mourinho’s weaselling and whingeing, that paper’s sports editor let slip in an online chat with (rather stunned) readers that he knows first-hand that victimismo is one stance that Mourinho’s chairman, Florentino Pérez can’t stomach. He left unsaid how much longer he thinks Peréz will continue stand for it.
If Mourinho carries on like this, even if the doors of that trophy cabinet do swing open again come the end of May, I wonder whether when Pérez takes stock he’ll weigh up whether it’s been worth it, if the price of securing another shiny trinket has been to become the laughing stock of the Liga.
What Mourinho seems not to understand is that it’s no failure, no dishonour, no disgrace to be No. 2. Being a good loser really is more important than being a winner that nobody can stand. And, ironically, I suspect that Rosell and Guardiola would even accept winning sod all this season with relatively good grace, provided they knew that the players, manager and the club as an institution would continue to be admired for their way of doing things rather than, like Madrid under Mou right now, derided and detested for it.
“On Saturday evening he also tore into Deportivo’s tactical approach to the game, stating that “Only one team wanted to win, the other worked with all their strength to defend.” Of course, the inconvenient truth that his Inter team made no attempt to take possession of the ball at the Camp Nou last season was expediently ignored, as was the ridiculous logic behind the expectation of Depor to go all-out against an eminently better team than themselves.”
You can’t really compare the 2 games. Inter had already won the 1st leg 3-1, and thus did not need to win the 2nd leg, and would have only needed to go on the offensive if barcelona scored 2 goals, something they could not do.
I agree, you can’t make a direct comparison, but surely you get the general point? The Barca game wasn’t the only time Mourinho has played negatively, either.
Extremely incisive and informative post from Archie V., who I guess is on the other side of the Merengue/Cule divide from myself, but who exemplifies much of what I admire in true Madridistas.
Fantastic article – something I have longed to write, but never got round to. I love him as a coach, but even when the British media swooned around him at the outset of his Chelsea adventure, I never quite fell for the belligerence; A man of his stature should take more responsibility for his words, given the impact he has on referees and young children coming into the game etc…
[…] Jose Mourinho and the grapes of wrath. [The Equaliser] […]
I do think the article overlooks some aspects of Mourinho’s style.
1. Mourinho has not become more beligerent than in the past. When in Portugal, he once tore the shirt of an opponent’s player at a press conference indicating the player was dead to him. His crime had been to keep on playing whilst a Mourinho player was injured, which resulted in a goal.
Whereas Mourinho seems more vocal now, that has only to do with the environment where he works. In England the FA keeps a tighter control on the public comments (see Ferguson’s present problems following his outburst after the Chelsea match). In Italy that is not present, but the papers will campaign against you if you don’t follow certain unwritten rules. In Spain, because there are partisan newspapers, he can afford to say those things, because the Barcelona papers will always demonise him and the Madrid one will idolise him. He just adapts his rants to the environment.
2. The rants are more common after such matches because he feels the need to protect his players. Anyone who thinks a mad and delusional coach could foster such close relationships with his players must be mad. He protects them by exposing himself. In return he demands total commitment and belief in him. These tirades against referees and opponents are nothing more than a very nice way of deflecting attention from tactics and players’ performances.
3. Mourinho always likes to keep a nice relationship with the fans. Keeping this siege mentality, especially in a world of such strong divide, helps to keep the fans on his side. They couldn’t care less about how bad it looks like.
4. Mourinho’s style is always one of keeping a constant confict with the presidents of the clubs he works at. This is done to defend his players from criticism from above, to ascertain his position in the hierarchy (see the internal conflict with Valdano) and so that he can excuse himself with those conflicts in case he leaves (done that at Porto and Chelsea and partly at Inter Milan). That way he can always say it wasn’t exclusively his fault: “We didn’t see eye to eye”.
About the style, Mourinho has built the most attacking and exciting team of his career and in just a few months. Porto’s team was solid, knew how to occupy space and keep possession in a patient way. Chelsea were a force of Nature, brutally bludgeoning the opponents to death. Inter were tactically accomplished and extremely intelligent in how they played. Real Madrid are a fast attacking machine.
These styles come from the players but also from the fact that each league and each club have their own styles. All those styles took the basic stron points of each country and exacerbated them. Madrid are no exception.
If you want to play like Barcelona, you should try by creating a brilliant generation of players who learned to play in a certain way and then bring a few (rather expensive) players who give you the edge you’re still lacking. Barcelona are a brilliant team, but as style and “more than a club” slogans go, they are more a product of marketing than anything else.
[…] Jose Mourinho and the grapes of wrath. [The Equaliser] […]
“About the style, Mourinho has built the most attacking and exciting team of his career and in just a few months. Porto’s team was solid, knew how to occupy space and keep possession in a patient way. Chelsea were a force of Nature, brutally bludgeoning the opponents to death. Inter were tactically accomplished and extremely intelligent in how they played. Real Madrid are a fast attacking machine.”
Jesus, stop being delusional.
All Mourinho sides were largely defensive, especially during important games, and played on the break.
They were all boring and negative.
[…] Jose Mourinho and the grapes of wrath. [The Equaliser] […]
No Fegelein to torment him, besides, he already won la liga