The mind game meets its match
Well, okay, the peace on earth bit might be a little wide of the mark, I’ll grant you that, but otherwise, Winston O’Boogie was right on the money even if, at the time, probably only his Mama, Papa and Action Man fully appreciated that 10-year-old Jose was indeed a special one.
But from the time we first became aware of him in these parts, bounding up the touchline at Old Trafford like an overjoyed puppy, Mourinho and mind games have become synonymous in the popular prints.
No surprise then that he was pushing those barriers and planting those seeds before, during and after Wednesday night’s Champions League version of El Clasico, albeit that, unlike the venerable Mr Lennon, Mourinho’s formidable mental powers are always directed towards tilting the odds in his favour rather than making the world a better place in which to live.
What amazes me is that even seemingly smart folk invariably rise to the bait. In the build-up to this week’s game, Mourinho selected Pep Guardiola for special attention, using a deliberate misinterpretation of remarks the latter had made about a refereeing decision to mock the Barcelona manager.
This was mischievous rather than malicious stuff but poor old Pep seemed to suffer a full-blown sense of humour bypass so that, instead of responding in kind he abandoned his carefully constructed composure and, in an explosive outburst, proceeded to turn the air blue in the Bernabeu.
All of this was, of course, by way of mere build-up to the main event itself, although Mourinho watchers were still intent on playing those mind games even after the players had crossed the white line.
The Dunph took it to extremes out in Montrose, arguing at half time that the embarrassing outburst of Barcelona play-acting, which had preceded that tunnel dust-up, was a direct consequence of the Madrid manager “messing with people’s heads”.
John Giles begged to disagree, wisely observing that if Barca had been so fundamentally distracted, the effects would have manifested themselves a lot earlier than 10 minutes before the break. A much simpler explanation was that the Catalans were responding to the ugliness of Madrid’s strong-arm tactics with ugliness of a different kind.
A moment to consider the bigger picture might also have revealed that, given the fixture’s history of politics and pigs’ heads, El Clasico hardly needs Mourinho’s powers of provocation to infuse the thing with the spite, snarl and slyness which disfigured this latest instalment of a long-running feud.
In fact, Mourinho’s real impact on the action was tactical and entirely negative: by seeking to do again to Barcelona what he’d done to them with Inter last year — but this time with a far more brittle defence.
Mourinho has complained bitterly that Pepe’s sending off was the turning point and, given that the game was scoreless at the time, he clearly has a point.
But it could also be argued that the red card actually bailed Mourinho out, allowing him the luxury of believing that his dead-hand tactics failed to achieve their just reward only because the dark forces had once again conspired to do him in.
In fact, by any objective assessment, Madrid’s killjoy football got exactly what it deserved: two goals from the footballer who, more than any other in the highest echelons of the world game, still plays as though nothing could be more joyful and life-affirming than finding yourself gliding over the grass with a ball at your feet.
As for that majestic second, suffice to say that Madrid’s problem at the time wasn’t that they only had 10 players on the pitch; their problem, shared by all those other bamboozled teams who have come up against the magical, mesmerising Messi, is that they didn’t have 12 or 13.
All of which left Mourinho falling back on a mind game — and it was, arguably, his most audacious yet. Asked about his team’s chances in the second leg, he simply ran the white flag up the pole.
“Yes, we are out,” he said. “Sometimes I am a little bit disgusted to live in this world, but this is the world we live in. We will have to go to Barcelona and look for some pride, without Pepe, who didn’t do anything, without Ramos, who didn’t do anything, and without a coach to sit on the bench.
“As soon as Pepe was sent off, all of their problems were solved. If, in a sporting sense, it’s difficult to turn this around, I would say it’s now mission impossible. If we go there and score a goal, they will kill us again.’’
One of Mourinho’s greatest strengths as a manager — and let’s not forget, he hasn’t become a serial winner by chance — is that he has always inspired huge commitment and self-belief in his players. And he has never shirked from creating a siege mentality if that’s what he felt it would take to motivate his followers. But there’s a difference between motivation and martyrdom, and if his men do buy into his latest mind game, it will almost certainly be the last Jose Mourinho gets to play as manager of Real Madrid.
And, be assured, it won’t be pretty either.
- Contact: liammackey@hotmail.com
