There are two equal and opposite errors we often make with Mourinho. The first is to glorify his ability to win football matches. The other is to deride him as an overly cautious tactician who betrays the purist principles of football. Both errors do Mourinho a disservice. Mourinho’s successes have been frequent and sometimes entertaining. The common thread in his career has been his emphasis on winning- at all costs.
I find Mourinho’s antics amusing, puzzling and rousing in equal measure. So this is not an attempt to moralize the man or any form of “roast”. What it is is a practical assessment of the peculiar effect Mourinho has on football as a sport. It is an attempt to explore the implications of Mourinho’s attitude towards winning. To do so, we have to highlight some of the values we consider important in football and naturally, there will be disagreement. But this is not about Mourinho the villain; it is about Mourinho the winner and the particular price of this victory for our sport.
In a way, Mourinho the winner is under appreciated in our sport. He has demonstrated the ability to help players raise their game and break the barriers of achievement. By transmitting his unwavering desire to win unto his players, his teams are able to embark on a single-minded pursuit of their goals. His time at Inter Milan is perhaps the finest example of this. Mourinho took a talented, disjointed, slightly-underachieving group of players and turned them into a lean, mean treble-winning machine. The sight of Samuel Eto’o as an auxiliary left-back is an enduring memory. Marco Materazzi, who infamously cried when Mourinho left said, “He’s an excellent motivator, a good strategist and a great manager. He creates empathy with the players and that is so important because when you have 25 players in a squad it can be difficult to keep them together as one every day.”
This ability of Mourinho’s has had a lasting effect on the English game. Despite the abysmal state of the current Chelsea team, Mourinho was the crucial ingredient in creating the great Chelsea team of the 21st century. Players like John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba openly admitted their eternal debt to Mourinho for elevating them to seemingly unattainable heights. In 2013, Didier Drogba revealed he felt that Mourinho made him a great striker and that is the same for a lot of the players who remained at Chelsea when Mourinho left as they “still have that winning mentality”. Meanwhile, Frank Lampard said Mourinho gave him self-confidence and had a unique ability to squeeze more out of his players. The character shown in their 2012 UEFA Champions League triumph was a vindication of the work Mourinho had done with a lot of those players.
In helping these players break the barriers of achievement, Mourinho made a significant contribution to the culture and history of the European game. He played a significant role in moulding some of our modern day heroes and for this, he deserves a lot of praise. The problem is that for Mourinho, these only matter in so far as they help him win. Unfortunately, this mentality inevitably creates problems.
Mourinho has a well-known blueprint. His present struggles at Chelsea have resurrected the old 3-year cycle arguments. Yet there is even more depth to this. Mourinho’s impact here will be captured by 3 “C’s”. The first “C” stands for collateral damage and actually, the other 2 “C’s” derive from it.
In his quest for success, Mourinho sometimes employs methods that have debilitating long-term effects. He likes to operate with a level of intensity that creates a siege mentality in his dressing room. This works very well for a short time and proved instrumental in his greatest achievement so far – winning the treble with Inter Milan. Creating an insider/outsider dynamic where certain players are excluded for the benefit of the more intimate group is another familiar tactic of his. In a way, he has shown that he needs a certain level of controlled conflict to thrive. Problem is, there is an externality here and that is precisely the collateral damage. The thing with externalities (like smoking, for example) is that we try and correct them not because we are particularly averse to the action (smoking) but because we are wary of the external cost imposed on everyone (second-hand smoke).
Similarly, Mourinho’s tendency to burn bridges is a problem because it imposes costs on the players and clubs he leaves behind, and football in general. The way clubs have struggled in the wake of his departure (Chelsea, Inter Milan) is evidence of this but less salient is how football suffers. But it does. Mourinho’s tirade against UEFA, UNICEF and Barcelona, presumably for the purpose of winning the psychological and footballing battle with Barcelona, is a fine example. In stretching his claims that far, Mourinho involved himself in issues that went beyond football; issues that touched on life and death. Whether or not his claims were valid, Mourinho was jeopardizing the relationship between Barcelona and UNICEF, a relationship that benefits millions of people around the world.
So Mourinho’s quest to win football matches leads him to make decisions that sometimes have serious collateral damage. The second “C” is a more topical example – Eva Carneiro. The facts of the case are well established: Mourinho was vexed at Carneiro and Jon Fearn for rushing on to the pitch (at the signal of the referee and with Eden Hazard in seeming distress) because he was worried about forfeiting the point Chelsea were hanging on to in the first game of the season. This case is particularly powerful because it shows the extremity of Mourinho’s win-at-all-costs mentality. Firstly, in terms of player health, the Premier League Doctors’ Association agreed that Mourinho’s actions showed “that the medical care of players appears to be secondary to the result of the game”. This shows how Mourinho has made an inadvertent negative contribution to the medical debate in football, in the wake of the ongoing arguments about the treatment of in-game concussions. And this from a man who was on the touchline when Petr Cech suffered that horrific head injury.
Meanwhile, Mourinho’s treatment of Carneiro in the wake of that outburst, and her subsequent exit from Chelsea, again show the malicious effect of some of his methods. Mourinho has been cleared of any improper conduct in a bizarre FA investigation but Greg Dyke himself has chided Mourinho for his actions, “There have been some well-documented issues of late around equality and inclusion in the game, an issue where it is vital we continue to show clear leadership.” Mourinho’s handling of the Carneiro issue was problematic whether or not he took particular advantage of her gender. Women already struggle to gain credibility and respect in the game and leaving someone of her standing out to dry set back female progress in football. All to hold on to a 2-2 draw with Swansea.
Mourinho’s emphasis on winning as the only relevant yardstick have irked some of the game’s purists, Arsene Wenger especially. But what is being shown here is how this actually has negative effects on people, clubs and the culture of the game. The final “C” perfectly captures this: Iker Casillas. A lot has been written about the dynamics of the Casillas-Mourinho relationship and only those inside the club can really explain what happened. What is clear is that Casillas form dipped after an injury and dipped even more after Mourinho made him the centre-piece of his mind games.
Why does this matter? Casillas was an inspiration and institution at Real Madrid. “Saint Iker” was close to cementing a legacy at Madrid comparable to those of Alfredo Di Stefano, Santiago Bernabeu and Raul. As football fans, we don’t like to see that ripped away nonchalantly, out of respect for the club and its history. This is because we care about our heroes and we do not want to see them cut down for no reason. The tragedy of Casillas’ departure is how the narrative of history has been irreparably altered in a way that contradicts our impressions about the game.
Contrary to Mourinho’s beliefs, history remembers more than just the winners. History also remembers stories and glory and tragedy. Brian Clough’s “Damned United” era, Brazil’s failure at the 1982 World Cup and the Calciopoli scandal are stories etched in our minds as vividly as any other. Mourinho cares about how posterity judges his trophy haul, less so how he shapes the narrative and culture of football. This is why his treatment of Casillas is so shallow – to him it was a case of dealing with a purported mole when it was much more; it was a critical juncture in the tale of Real Madrid’s narrative as a football club.
Judging Mourinho in this way requires us to go beyond thinking about football just in terms of what happens on the pitch. It forces us to remember that football is a culture of its own – with history, language, prejudice, heroes and legacies. All these contribute towards why we love the game so much and they exist adjacent to the outcomes and narratives on the pitch. Maybe Mourinho doesn’t see things this way. Maybe he believes that winning football matches and trophies is all that matters. That would explain his nonchalant attitude towards the impressions he has made. If so, he does our sport a great disservice.