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Comment: Mind Game Master Mourinho In A League Of His Own
               
Chelsea
manager Jose Mourinho seems to be locked into confrontational mode as
the season moves towards its climax. As a coach the Portuguese is
highly successful. Indeed, in his own estimation, he is one of the
best, if not the best, in the business. His record at Stamford Bridge,
and Porto before that, is exceptional. Yet he is clearly not content,
or able, to let his team’s results and achievements speak for
themselves.

Not only does he feel driven to remind us how good he and his team are
at every opportunity; he also feels compelled to launch scathing verbal
volleys at his opponents or perceived anti-Chelsea conspirators almost
every time he opens his mouth.

Of course, we need to put this behaviour into some kind of context.
The man is required to speak to the media and respond to their
questions incessantly, and everything he says gets widely reported. In
journalistic parlance, Mourinho is good copy. Answering questions that
are put to him, albeit in a forthright and provocative way, is not
necessarily the same as having a specific agenda and proactively using
the media to get it across, although in Mourinho’s case the two
converge and overlap conveniently.

On the face of it, his remarks and general demeanour can give the
impression of someone who is at best a drama queen, at worst paranoid.
He may be both those things, and much in between; but he is also an
intelligent man, and while some non-Chelsea fans may find his apparent
attempts to wind up the opposition puerile, arrogant,
counter-productive or just plain daft, we can safely assume that
Mourinho himself has shrewdly calculated the impact that his comments
will have.

The essence of his profession are tactics and man-management, and in
press conferences he displays the same attributes: he is playing
tactical "mind games" that complement what he sends his players out to
do on the pitch. And he manages the assembled press corps, feeding them
sound-bites, controversy and headlines that help create a particular
climate before and after matches.

This season though, Mourinho’s conduct has been particularly
interesting. For the first time since he came to England he has not had
it all his own way on the pitch. Chelsea remain a formidable and highly
resilient team, as their current 22-match unbeaten run (including 18
victories) confirms. But they have been more than matched every step of
the way by a resurgent Manchester United, while in the Champions League
the spectre of a Benitez-inspired tactical coup remains, despite
Chelsea’s 1-0 lead from the first-leg of their semi-final.

For all their excellent results thus far, Chelsea are not yet
certain of adding to the Carling Cup this season. They believe they can
do it, but have to recognise that they may not. Mourinho’s response to
this has been to snipe at Manchester United, the establishment that he
claims favours the Red Devils (from fixture scheduling to referees’
decisions on penalties), Rafa Benitez, Liverpool, Cristiano Ronaldo…
the list steadily grows.

Mourinho likes to wrap himself in the armour of "honesty" - in his
typically self-serving way he suggested last weekend that if he was not
allowed to speak "the truth" about penalty decisions it would mean the
"end of democracy." And when Ronaldo suggested that his compatriot
Mourinho "does not know how to admit his own failures" after the
Chelsea boss’s provocative comments about the way penalties are awarded
- or refused - in the Premiership, Mourinho’s response was:  "If
Ronaldo says it is a lie penalties were not given against United, then
he is lying. He needs to see he cannot fight with facts. If he is a
liar, he will never reach the level he wants to reach."

So, Honest Jose is the guardian of the facts, the upholder of the
truth, even if it means being inflammatory. At least that is the image
he likes to convey.

It has been said that he adopts this persona, and delivers his often
outrageous remarks (such as claiming he would have been sacked by
Chelsea if he had failed, like Benitez, to deliver the League title in
the last three years) in order to protect his players. In other words,
Mourinho provides all the distraction so that his team can concentrate
on preparing for and winning matches. And of course, creating a bunker
mentality whereby it’s "us against the world" is a tried and tested
strategy for successful sports teams.

No doubt there is much substance to these arguments. But there is
just a suspicion also that Mourinho is currently running a little
scared. His great fear would be to come up short. Or to put it bluntly,
to fail. He is not accustomed to that. Failure does not register on the
radar of Mourinho’s vanity. But Manchester United and/or Liverpool
could yet thwart his ambitions of world football domination at club
level.

The thing that has been most irritating to many of a non-Chelsea
persuasion this season has been Mourinho’s apparent attempt to gain the
sympathy vote by portraying Chelsea as victims.

Mourinho has railed against the inequities of a punishing programme
- yet all successful teams have to play matches thick and fast, because
going far in all competitions unavoidably creates a hectic schedule.

He has whined repeatedly about penalties - but overall, these
decisions tend to favour all of the big four during the course of a
season. And Mourinho made a bit of a fool of himself in midweek by
hanging his post-match comments on the peg of not being awarded a
penalty for Arbeloa’s handball when the alleged offence clearly
occurred outside the area. Of course, by keeping the issue of penalties
in the headlines, and railing about perceived injustices to his side,
Mourinho might help sway a future decision in Chelsea’s favour. On the
question of injustices, however, let’s not forget that when Chelsea and
Liverpool met in the Champions League Group stage in 2005, the Reds
were denied a penalty at Anfield when William Gallas got away with a
clear handball to block a Jamie Carragher header. And during the return
game at the Bridge, Michael Essien went unpunished by the ref for a
horrendous tackle on Dietmar Hamann. So it’s not all one-way traffic.

Throughout the season Mourinho has also sought to highlight
Chelsea’s supposedly crippling injury problems, which have hardly been
much worse than those suffered by just about every club as a matter of
routine.

Chelsea deserve huge credit for their outstanding consistency over
three seasons, for their ability to deliver trophies, for some
remarkable, battling performances and for the shrewd tactical mind and
improvisational acumen of their coach.

But they do not warrant our sympathy. If a club with Chelsea’s
resources and track record of acquiring top class players at huge
expense suddenly finds itself short of cover, it only has itself to
blame for not planning more thoroughly.

The key issues are all set to be decided one way or another over the
next month, and we can be fairly certain that Jose will provide plenty
more melodramatics to go with the dramas on the pitch. 

However, there is no doubt that following football would be a lot
less entertaining without Mourinho. As Kevin Nolan - the captain of
Bolton, who face Chelsea on Saturday - put it in his weekly column for
the BBC Sport website:  "Sometimes people might think he has gone too
far or that he is losing it - but I don’t believe that for a second.
Mourinho is a superb manager who knows how to work the media and is
compulsive viewing."

Most of us would echo that, however grudgingly.

Graham Lister

What do you think of Jose Mourinho’s mind games?

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 9:27 pm and is filed under Current Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.