adminHERE we are then, Jose Mourinho and your correspondent, ensconced in the ‘penthouse’ suite in Harrods. Before you ask: oh yeah, all the time.
There are caviar canapes, champagne, air kisses on both cheeks. This is where the handsome of the species come to serve and consume. It is decadent, confident, privileged. Yet it is a shop. You look and wonder. The working man’s game.
It is a few hours after Mourinho has been fined by the FA and warned his behaviour could lead to a stadium ban. Mourinho is indignant. The fine is £50 000 which, nationally, is nearly twice the average annual salary. Around here £50 000 might buy a toilet.
This is the different world, a couple of floors above “Superbrands”. And all are at ease in it, Mourinho, too.
He is in a private room inside this private room. In this cocoon he will promote an exclusive Swiss watch. He collects watches. Time has been on his side, mostly.
Unusually, The Irish Times have been invited along, too, in part because an article a few weeks ago pointed out that Mourinho might not be bad at his job.
While agitation grew because Chelsea had lost to Crystal Palace and Everton, it seemed reasonable to note that in eight of the previous 13 seasons — including last season — a team managed by Mourinho had won their league.
In Portugal, in England, in Italy, in Spain, in England again.
You could add two Champions Leagues — with Porto and Inter Milan — and, if you choose, that in 2003 and 2010 Mourinho’s team won trebles.
This is what is known as a body of work. Losing to Palace and Everton, that’s what is known as losing two matches.
But let’s say it deteriorated and Chelsea were to lose at Porto in their second Champions League group match, then against Southampton at home. Let’s say it got really bad and they finished the season fifth or sixth in the Premier League.
Would Jose Mourinho’s body of work be forgotten in that instance?
One question is whether our sporting culture has decreed that a proven manager — one of the greatest of all time — can tolerate one “bad” season. Unfortunately for Jose Mourinho, the answer is No.
Another question, particular to him, and significant, is whether his persona has obscured his achievements.
The answer many would say is Yes and given what he’s done, given what he’s won, this perception is of enormous damage because the perception has become real.
It is real enough for Chelsea to be considering sacking him. Again, we can say, look at his c.v.
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Career-wise things could be worse. Mourinho could be at Benfica, where he started out in 2000.
Then Mourinho was appointed by a club president who promptly lost his next election. At board level there was immediate instability and in Mourinho’s first match, Benfica were a goal down within 60 seconds — his first pre-match team talk must have been something.
In Mourinho’s second match, Benfica were eliminated from the UEFA Cup, at home.
In his third, his captain, Calado, came in at half-time and made for the showers saying he wasn’t playing any more.
“Nah, it’s different,” he says. “It was the beginning of my career. Obviously there is a doubt surrounding your ability. When I started my career at Benfica, and even at Porto before my first titles, there is a doubt — about what people don’t know. That’s a kind of pressure.
“In this moment, the pressure that I feel is the pressure I put upon myself. I know the world and I know the world of football, people are waiting for negative moments. The negative moment sells.
“But really, I don’t feel the kind of pressure of before. Because now I have a history, a big history. I really don’t accept that people can doubt my ability just because I am having some bad results.’
Mourinho had warmed to his theme.
“In football there is a culture,” he says.
“I’m not sure of the right word in English — but I think it is “vulture”.
“The culture of the vulture. When they feel something can happen, they start circling. It’s something I never did.
“When I was without a job for six, seven months in 2007, I always behave the way ethics tell me to behave. I didn’t go to football, didn’t comment on football, didn’t fly over stadiums where they were having difficult results. I was quiet. I was waiting. Now there is the culture of the vulture.’
Mourinho is correct. There is clear evidence of diminishing patience within football. But he doesn’t leave it there.
“I know the culture now, even in England. Before it was not the culture in this country, but, especially the pundits.
“They have a new job, which has become a very important job, it’s changed the culture a lot.
“Some of the pundits are really brave. To criticise someone with my history, you need to be brave, as there is a risk someone like myself will say, “Shut up. You’ve won nothing in your life”.
”But I won’t do that. I just work and hope that the good results are coming.
“You know, stability for the manager, in general, it’s gone. It’s gone for everyone, except a couple of special ones.’
In May Chelsea won the Premier League. It was for the first time in five seasons. In the six years between Mourinho’s first and second Chelsea jobs, there were seven replacements.
Yet within eight games of the new season, that trademark certainty was gone. Mourinho flipped after Southampton, spoke of departure, ‘the worst period of my career’ and said: ‘There are other people in Chelsea that should also assume responsibilities.’
A public vote of confidence from the board followed.
Now he says: “The reality is that I’ve never lost so many matches in a three-month period. It’s strange. Strange for me. But it’s a good experience.
“I don’t like people to resign just because you are having a bad run. I don’t like that. You have to be strong enough, brave enough to believe in yourself and go until the moment somebody stops you. That’s what I said.
“The owners, the board, they’re the ones with the power. The managers, I think they have to be completely convinced of their ability, cope with the negative results and go for it. That was my message at the time.”
Mourinho adds of this period: ‘I think my career is not normal. I think it is not normal because I won so much, and consecutively. That’s not normal.
“What is happening to me after 15 years should have happened before. It’s not normal, not normal. In 15 years, in only one did I not win a major title. In 15 years I won 22 major titles. It’s too much. It’s too much.”
Such success, he says, has sparked “envy” and this is why he sees so much “happiness” in others at his and Chelsea’s difficulties.
“I learn to be happy with the happiness of the others,” he says sarcastically. ‘But I repeat, it’s a moment. It’s not a moment that will last for a long time.
“Of course I’m entitled to one bad season. There are guys who have one good season out of 20. Some of them not even one good. I’m entitled. I don’t need to prove.’
Yet that basic issue of happiness is interesting. There is a palpable sense that Mourinho, for all the material wealth, feels under- appreciated. For someone so successful, Mourinho is curiously unhappy.
Mourinho says: ‘I feel lots of affection, more than I could imagine. I feel affection from my players, lots of people in the street. I have lots of affection. It’s the football world that is changing. I feel that I am a strange case because my world is football. I love it, I love my job. This is the job I always wanted and I dedicate myself to it.
“But I don’t belong, I don’t belong to what Desmond Morris called many years ago “The Tribe of Football” (The Soccer Tribe).
“I belong to the tribe in the Desmond Morris concept of the tribe of football, but in the modern concept of the tribe of football, I don’t belong.
“I live in a different world. I’m not with the power. I’m not with the power. I’m a lonely guy in this modern world of football.
“I do my work. I’m not a politician, I’m not a PR, I don’t care what people think about me. I don’t, you know, I’m just what I am.
“When I am in a great moment it looks like nothing’s happened; when I am in a bad moment, I pay for this a little bit. I don’t have many friends in the football world.”
We leave it there. His watch says time’s up. — DAILY MAIL.
Online Reporter