Why yesterday’s man seems finished at the highest level
Hmourinho is paying for his failure to adapt with the times as once magnetic ego becomes his biggest flaw
Is this what the end looks like for Jose Mourinho – sacked on the day that the world is talking about the creation of a breakaway European Super League? His dismissal certainly felt like the sporting equivalent of that infamous spin doctor email: “A good day to bury bad news.”
His 17 months in charge of Tottenham Hotspur have been an irredeemable, unhappy failure, even if the team were briefly top of the table before Christmas. The fact that his departure is not even the day’s biggest football story perhaps tells a tale in itself and the question now is whether his time as an elite-level manager is at an end.
“Same coach, different players,” Mourinho said a few weeks ago when asked why Spurs could not defend a lead in the way his former teams did. That felt like the sign it was all coming to an end. There are very few positive features of his reign, which sunk into a familiar pattern of blame, recrimination and negativity and did so alarmingly quickly – although Tottenham fans will say it is typical of their club that they did not even get the relief of a piece of silverware along the way, as others have done.
By sacking Mourinho, chairman Daniel Levy has denied him the chance to lead Spurs out at Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Manchester City. Maybe Levy simply reasoned that Spurs had no hope with Mourinho but – to be frank – the League Cup is hardly a priority, even if it would be their first trophy since 2008. No, the timing had more to do with compensation levels than trying to win a cup.
Hiring Mourinho was always a risk, even if it did get the idea of having him as Spurs manager out of Levy’s system. The chairman had wanted him since he was first dismissed by Chelsea in 2007, but while it is easy to say that the Mourinho of 14 years ago is a very different proposition to the one now, the truth is perhaps that he is too similar. He has failed to adapt with the times and that was always going to be his downfall.
One wonders where he goes
next. Where once Mourinho bequeathed a legacy of a stuffed trophy cabinet, now he simply leaves toxicity: they still talk about drawing the poison of his time at Manchester United, with Paul Pogba accusing him last week of casting players aside. At Spurs, just switch Pogba’s name for Dele Alli.
Clearly players have to take responsibility, but the fact there is such a similar pattern of behaviour involving Mourinho cannot be ignored. It was said a long time ago by an executive at Chelsea that once Mourinho stops winning there is little else to love about his football, but that now feels like mainstream opinion.
Mourinho’s options, at the highest level, are shrinking rapidly. He has managed Chelsea (twice),
United and now Spurs, and it is hard to see him ever working in the Premier League again. There is little chance Manchester City, Liverpool or Arsenal would ever countenance Mourinho. If the Saudi Arabian takeover of Newcastle United happens, they may be seduced into going for him, but it is unlikely he would want to try another club outside the “Big Six”. His pride would find that hard to swallow, especially if those clubs succeed with their European breakaway.
Spurs felt like Mourinho’s last chance in English football, a point he even seemed to concede when he arrived. Back then, he was bright and breezy and talked about having learnt lessons and changed and there being no need for new
players. That did not last. Not that anyone should have expected it to.
Outside England, his options are hardly better. Perhaps if Antonio Conte quits Inter Milan, as is possible, he will return there, although there are financial difficulties at the Italian club. Similarly, if his bond with Real Madrid president Florentino Perez is as strong as has been suggested and Zinedine Zidane decides to go, a return to the Bernabeu might be mooted – but that feels improbable.
He has suggested that he may one day coach Portugal but, at 58, he will believe he is still too young to make that move. No, it looks like Mourinho’s future may lie in one of the developing football markets such as China or the Middle East. He has turned down such chances in the past, but then he had more offers on the table.
What is fascinating is how much he wants to work; how he craves it, misses it and how it defines him. He visibly struggled while on gardening leave after being sacked by United and appeared bereft. How it will hurt him that he is now facing a career of diminishing returns when he was undoubtedly the “Special One” of his managerial generation – charismatic and brilliant in equal measure.
Mourinho’s greatest gift was his self-belief and his magnetic ego, but it has now become his biggest flaw. He is like the scorpion in the Aesop fable that wants to cross the river and asks a frog to carry him. The frog hesitates, afraid the scorpion will sting him, but is told that will not happen because they will both then drown. The frog reluctantly agrees to take the scorpion, which, halfway across, does sting him. The dying frog asks the scorpion why. “I couldn’t help it. It’s in my nature,” the scorpion says.
The truth is, football has changed and Mourinho has not. It is simply in his nature.
Where once Mourinho bequeathed a stuffed trophy cabinet, now he simply leaves toxicity