Mourinho: Further Anatomy of a Winner by Patrick Barclay

Author:Patrick Barclay [BARCLAY, PATRICK]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Football (Soccer, Association Football)
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2011-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

Management

That day at Everton had presented Mourinho with a problem. Chelsea had led the Premier League for three months – since they beat Everton at Stamford Bridge – and although Arsenal had yet to recover the form that their Old Trafford experience had disrupted, Manchester United were challenging. Chelsea went to Merseyside with a nine-point advantage. United had a derby against Manchester City the following day. The dismissal of James Beattie seemed just what Chelsea would have wanted, but breaching a depleted team is not always easy, as Mourinho told us. He was responding to someone who asked, before the trip to Barcelona, if it were not a comfort at such times to be sitting on a cushion at the top of one’s domestic league. He smiled ruefully. ‘Maybe you won’t believe this,’ he said, ‘but towards the end of the first half at Everton, between the thirtieth and forty-fifth minutes, I felt the players were too anxious to score against ten men and lost their shape.’ Having devised a means of relieving them of their obligation, he strode to the dressing room. ‘I told them to let the game flow, because a point would be good, no problem. “If we drop two points,” I said, “we stay seven points clear, even if Manchester United win tomorrow. So there’s no pressure. Now let’s go.” I didn’t make any changes. I didn’t scream at them. I just reminded them of those nine points and said, “If we score, we score. If we don’t score, we don’t score.”’ He paused slightly. ‘I was desperate to score!’ Eidur Gudjohnsen obliged and Chelsea had three more points. United, though they won at the City of Manchester Stadium, realised – because that weekend, given the status Everton had acquired, had been seen as a milestone – they were fighting for second place. What did Moyes, now he had been apprised of Mourinho’s team-talk, think of it? ‘Great management.’

Management has always been to do with psychology. And Mourinho has never been above playing the odd trick on his own men. A few days before what turned out to be his last match with Benfica – the derby against Sporting – he decided to indulge his affection for tennis at the Masters Cup, which was being held in Lisbon that year. He went with his assistant, Carlos Mozer, and, having spotted the Sporting players strolling among the throng of spectators, resolved to turn this to his advantage. He told Mozer he was going to ‘poison’ his own team by telling them the Sporting players were obviously so confident of thrashing Benfica they had neglected to prepare for the match in favour of disporting themselves all week at the tennis. He was, of course, exaggerating wildly and later confessed to it; he had simply been spinning the tale in order to put an additional edge on his own players’ appetites for the derby, which they won 3–0.

No slight, real or imagined, is ever wasted. Most coaches do this but few have done it as effectively as Mourinho.

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