Jose stars in his own theatre of the absurd
Although Warrior looked shook enough lately, you couldn’t rule out a resurrection match-up with The Undertaker, who inflicted one of Warrior’s first deaths when he suffocated him in a coffin during a typically low-key bout.
Adding to the uncertainty; Warrior had just made the WWE Hall of Fame and the day before, on Monday Night Raw, had delivered what would now work well as his eulogy.
“Every man’s heart one day beats its final beat. His lungs breathe their final breath. And if what that man did in his life makes the blood pulse through the body of others and makes them believe deeper in something larger than life, then his essence, his spirit, will be immortalised by the storytellers.”
Sadly, Warrior is dead all right. But whatever they say about him — and they are saying a lot — they can’t take that much away from him. He invariably got the blood pumping.
In that and many other ways, he was a kindred spirit of Jose Mourinho’s — another of bullshit’s greatest ever artists — although Warrior tended to be the man on the receiving end of the eye gouges.
In the wide — for improbably narrow — eyes of John Terry following Chelsea’s latest Champions League escape, we saw again Jose’s proven ability to get men believing deeply in something larger than life; Mourinho himself.
As JT marvelled at the way Jose had “worked on different scenarios” ahead of the win over PSG, there was no need to dwell on how the scenario that came up trumps was a series of hopeful punts towards Demba Ba, who Jose had long condemned as useless. In some quarters, they even tried to credit him for inspiring Demba’s winner. A goal scored out of spite maybe.
But that is the magic of Mourinho — it is in the veins of the storytellers where the blood courses fastest.
Certainly TV3 commentator Trevor Welch never looked more alive than when he smuggled a packet of custard creams into the bowels of Stamford Bridge.
A gift to commemorate the evening, four years earlier, when Mourinho had munched one during another of their post-match trysts.
It might have made for the most cringeworthy sporting interview we have seen — if you don’t consider any Tubridy has conducted — since Joe Duffy reported, on a Phoenix Park stage in 2002, that Oliver Kahn was suffering from DDD; Damien Duff Dizziness.
Funnily enough, Duffer was there or thereabouts for this one too — back at TV3 base talking about how he hugged and kissed Jose when he met him at Craven Cottage lately and how he still considered him the greatest.
Another man who believes deeply.
There are enough of them about to suggest the obduracy that Chelsea tend to show, on nights like Tuesday, was planted by Mourinho in his first spell. It has survived much. It might even be immortal.
But Jose still had to run up the touchline to remind us it was his. All his.
A new book revisiting Mourinho’s time at Real Madrid paints more similarities between Jose and Warrior. In The Special One: The Dark Side of Jose Mourinho, Diego Torres outlines the histrionics, the paranoia, the bullying, the tears that flooded Mourinho’s time at the Bernabeu.
Clasicos were stage-managed like WWE bouts, with Mourinho forbidding his Spanish players gestures of friendship towards their national team colleagues in the Barcelona side.
He was even keen, Torres suggests, that his men — especially Pepe — embrace their roles as villains in this parable of good and evil.
Torres describes the time Mourinho dropped to his knees after one Barca clash, sobbed uncontrollably and called the team “traitors” and “sons of bitches”.
“For everyone present it was difficult to work out if what they had seen was a real loss of emotional control or a piece of spontaneous theatre.”
Equals in over-acting perhaps, but there might be one significant way Jose and Warrior differ.
If you visit Warrior’s website, one of his old credos remains. “You must show no mercy. Nor have any belief whatsoever in how others judge you. For your greatness will silence them all.”
Jose might be no great believer in mercy. But greatness won’t be enough for him. He has to know how he is judged. And control that judgment.
Torres tells us a group of minions combed the Spanish media daily for references to Mourinho. And, if the account can be believed, Jose’s overriding need to shape his image surfaced most remarkably during the Champions League semi-final with Barca in 2011.
After losing a nasty first leg 2-0, Mourinho gathered his players to remind them that progress wasn’t necessarily the priority.
“If it ends 0-0… this will be enough to say that we were robbed at the Bernabeu.”
A man with a place for defeat built into his narrative. To people like Vince McMahon, Jose must seem like the one that got away.
Weeks after a group of Manchester United fans put their hands in their pockets to fly a plane over Moyesy’s head, to tell him to go; Chelsea fans are also having a collection — to pay Mourinho’s fine for running onto the pitch against Aston Villa.
Hard cash is as reliable a measure as any of the blood flow of men.
In another cruel week of comparisons, Mourinho was back on the pitch. And Moyesy followed him down the touchline the night after when Patrice Evra gave him a first true glimpse of glory.
It was all the more poignant that you could plainly see, in Moyesy’s face, as he gathered his men, that there was no show business here.
His words galvinised them for fully 22 seconds.
Afterwards, Moyesy tried his best to work defeat into his narrative. He talked about enjoying the Champions League, as though he was back, in just about one piece, from a school tour.
He sounded like a man happy he wasn’t embarrassed. Already that’s where United are; an underdog hailed for bravery in next morning’s papers.
If they were looking for a manager now, a fellow called Moyes who did well at Everton might even fit the bill.
Mourinho might’ve been too big for Old Trafford. Maybe Moyesy was too small. No matter, he might soon have resized the job to fit.
Damien Duff: Set to become football punditry’s first truly honest broker? Pressed on an Andre Schurrle tumble: “I’m probably the wrong man to ask. I like a little dive myself.”
Geoff Shreeves: “Michael, was that a fleeting glimpse of glory but ultimately a devastating defeat?” Nobody does statements of the obvious with the panache of Shreevsie. Carrick the latest victim.
Uefa: Deserve credit for tearing up Chelsea’s ransom note for Thibaut Courtois.
Hell in a Handcart:
Pele: “That is normal. These things happen... nothing to be scared of.” The main man plays down death of another World Cup stadium worker.
