If we were to discover Jose Mourinho lately fantasised during press conferences about mowing down the assembled hacks in a hail of semi-automatic gunfire while yelling at the top of his voice “SAY HELLO TO MY LEETLE FRIEND”, I think, on the whole, we’d understand. His rise, like that of the similarly arriviste Tony Montana in Scarface, has been both meteoric and, in its own way, violent, but now the white hot charisma that defined and propelled it seems very obviously to have burnt itself out. It must be hard on him.
Mourinho’s arrival on the global consciousness in a shimmering aura of Latin arrogance back in 2004, all Hollywood good-looks and hair gel, was scintillating. Middle-stage Mourinho was all conquering, winning the football leagues in England, Italy and Spain, not to mention two Champions League titles. But now – prematurely, given he is only 55 – it seems we are abruptly into late stage Mourinho and no one likes it very much, least of all the man himself. What once came so easily now appears difficult. What once seemed fresh is now tired. His most recent teams – manifestations, remember, of himself – have been peopled by bored-looking players, playing mainly dull and disjointed football. Crucially, and increasingly, they keep losing. How hard, then, the weekly press conferences must be in which he is challenged to explain to the world that which he surely doesn’t really understand himself: why his winning touch has deserted him. Under these circumstances we can forgive, can’t we, the odd flounce?
By comparing Mourinho to the fictional Tony Montana I’m not for a moment suggesting the Manchester United manager is dealing with the collapse of his potency as a force in the game by locking himself away in a room with only a few kilograms of cocaine for company. But certainly there are parallels between the two men. Once an elemental force of nature, by the end of Scarface Montana has become a neurotic recluse. In Manchester, Mourinho, who famously once styled himself the “Special One”, has for more than two years now lived separated from his family in a hotel room. With his every public utterance – in fact, with his every mannerism and hard stare – his fury with the world seems yet more abundantly palpable. What’s happened to him? And up there in the hotel room, how does he kill the hours before it’s time to send down once again for room service?
Perhaps that sounds too glib. In truth, there has been good reason to be concerned for Mourinho long before he stormed out of a press conference at the start of the week yelling for the “respect” he felt he was owed. I first thought something was up back in October, 2015, toward the very end of his second stint as Chelsea manager, around the time it had become apparent the majority of his players loathed him with sufficient intensity to no longer try for him. Following a thrashing at home to Southampton he delivered himself of a fifteen-minute swivel-eyed diatribe on live television during which he railed against referees, his own players and seemingly the universe itself. “Give us a break,” he pleaded. It seemed clear something was very wrong and nothing I’ve seen since has persuaded me otherwise.
It’s not just the sallow skin and the enormous bags under the eyes. It’s not even the complete lack of joy his body language denotes. Of the change that seems to have come over Mourinho, the most alarming aspect, I think, is his now seeming total disregard for the feelings of the young men it is his job to manage. Like no other manager I can think of, Mourinho seems increasingly happy to break the cardinal rule of his trade by slagging them off in public, thereby surely destroying any semblance of all important changing room togetherness. The stupidity of this approach seems unarguable – the consequences so obvious – and yet he keeps doing it. It’s not just deeply weird, it also suggests, I think, either the acquisition of a deep hatred for the game that has enriched him so lavishly and its exponents, or a total loss of the plot. I suspect it’s a bit of both.
Mourinho certainly didn’t used to criticise his players in public. Frank Lampard, in whose stellar career Mourinho played such an important role, has spoken glowingly in the past of the ways in which the Portuguese protected his players from the media during his first stint in charge of Chelsea.
But now it seems no one is off limits when it comes to shifting the blame for poor results from himself. At Real Madrid, for example, he explained to the world he had been forced to pick striker Karim Benzema over his preferred but injured choice Gonzalo Higuain thus: “if you don’t have a dog to go out hunting with, you have to go out with a cat”. At Chelsea he said of Eden Hazard, widely regarded to be one of the best players in the world: “he’s not the kind of player to really sacrifice himself 100 percent for the team and his mates.” And at Manchester United, after the defender had played a half on the side of the pitch closest to him, he said of Luke Shaw (who he has often criticised): “he had a good performance, but it was his body with my brain. He was in front of me and I was making every decision for him.”
There are many more examples of these types of insult, but you get the gist. I think it’s obvious why management has suddenly become so difficult for him: where once his players loved him, now they surely can’t stand him.
The final soul twister for Mourinho, of course, is the one he alluded to sarcastically in his latest press conference but which is true nonetheless. His teams play stultifying football. They always have. He can’t change that, any more than an introvert can suddenly become an extrovert. It is for this reason all of the imploring for him to emulate the swaggering, thrill-a-minute football exemplified by the teams of the great Sir Alex Ferguson is pointless. At the now infamous ‘respect’ press conference, Mourinho said: “I’m sorry, you have to tell me what is the most important thing, because I don’t know. When I win matches… you say that the most important thing is the way of playing… I need to know from you what is the most important thing. Is it to play well, or is it to win matches?” Deep down he knows the answer. As he knows it will never be him that delivers to the Manchester United faithful what they crave, because it’s simply not in him.
Why, he will wonder, after so much success, should he change? Tony Montana wondered the same thing. They shot him in the back.
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