Ennui and hubris among Manchester's rival managers
Pontus recalled a tackle with Zlatan Ibrahimovic five years ago, in a pre-season friendly between Malmö and AC Milan, as pivotal in his career. “Everything changed for me at that moment,” Jansson said. “We had a 50/50 tackle and I gave everything and so did he. He fell to the ground and I was standing up.
“I thought if I can do that to Zlatan, I can do it to anyone. It was an important moment for me and my career.”
It is unlikely Ibrahimovic recalls the incident. Not every tackle can be a life-changing experience, but men like Zlatan must bear in mind that it might be for their opponent.
On Wednesday night, against Manchester City, Zlatan, for the most part, played like a forward who would consider winning a 50/50 with Nicolas Otamendi to be a career high.
And he gave himself plenty opportunity, since his second touch was usually a tackle. But Zlatan stuck with it, becoming notably more industrious as the derby unfolded, eventually playing a part in the winner.
Sergio Aguero, too, must know well how it feels to star in the highlights reel of his markers’ lives. He came on against Manchester United and flitted around the outskirts of the action, not even making any memories for his compatriot Marcos Rojo.
It was hard to tell whether Aguero was following instructions or goading Pep Guardiola by staying far from the areas where he can be lethal. Staying true to the false in false nine.
Jose Mourinho may well have taken as much solace in the contrasting efforts of the strikers as in the result. Seems he has one ally in Manchester, at least.
So who’s lonelier in the city right now, Pep or Jose?
There is a great hunger out there to fast-track the Pep v Jose narrative into a success and failure parable. Double failure wasn’t on anyone’s radar, but as narratives go, it would work fine too.
Mourinho’s carry-on has simply worn thin. But in Guardiola’s case, there is a seductive branding opportunity for the Premier League that might even displace the Greatest League in the World tag.
The League Pep Couldn’t Conquer.
That prospect, and Pep’s banishment of a nation’s sweet Hart, ensures six games without a win is to be ‘plunged into crisis’.
Mourinho beat him to that state of affairs, and we heard complaints this week from unnamed players that he has been a distant presence at United so far.
Encouragingly for Pep, the leaks aren’t yet flowing freely from the City dressing room so we have had to take Bayern Munich defender Medhi Benatia’s word for it that Guardiola also keeps his distance now from his players, no longer looks to form bonds.
“He explained why to me once,” said Benatia. “He was disappointed by his relationship with some players at Barcelona, so he told me, ‘I just do my job — the coach’s’.”
So it was tempting to picture Pep popping into Jose’s lonely suite at the Lowry this week, seeking company, ready to bury the hatchet, maybe share a little dinner sourced from one of Jose’s apps.
The two men in the city who know better than anyone what it feels like to live every moment as a highlight in someone else’s life.
The distant cousins gazed into one another’s eyes like never before at Wednesday’s final whistle. A friendship might even suit Mourinho at this stage. It would fit nicely with the surprise debut of Mourinho the human being.
A week that began with touching concern for proper technical area decorum took in an unprecedented admission of fragility and ennui and concluded with a meek apology to the United faithful for disappointing them.
It could be that Mourinho has taken stock, realised he has eked the maximum from self-aggrandizement and swooped for humility in the transfer window.
But we must take into account, too, that Jose — a great admirer of Anthony Hopkins, seemingly — has gained a reputation as a fine actor himself. If humility is in season, it may be because he detects a deficit of that quality elsewhere.
ep doesn’t yet seem to have considered any need for the human touch in Manchester.
Arsene Wenger joked last week that he was already concerned about a meeting with God where he will only be able to claim that he tried to win football matches.
“He will say: ‘Is that all you have done?’ And the only answer I will have is: ‘It’s not as easy as it looks’.”
Pep made winning football matches look so easy for so long that it seems now he has a grander plan for God, or at least for his own legacy.
In his new book with Marti Perarnau, Pep Guardiola: The Evolution — follow up to Pep Confidential — Guardiola accepts he has bigger things to concern him now than the gauche business of winning and losing.
“I’ve a duty to pass on what I know to future generations.
“We’re (the great coaches) carrying on the work of Cruyff... of the Brazil of the seventies, of Cesar Menotti... and Ajax, the marvellous Magyars. We’re their natural heirs and of course we’ll lose sometimes. But the sun will still rise the next day and we’ll go on dreaming our dreams, doing our thing.
“The main lesson I’ve learned from my time in Munich is how to lose. I always want to win but obviously that’s impossible so at the least I’m determined to choose how I lose.”
Perarnau says City is a “blank canvas” where Pep “would be free to create as he saw fit”, where he will not hear “but this is the way we’ve always done it…”
It’s not quite Brian Clough advising the Leeds players to throw their medals in the bin, mainly because City, for all their medals, are not quite Leeds. But Aguero might have taken it like that, sat in the Nou Camp dugout.
When Pep was as much about winning as creating, and still employed the human touch, he sent Barcelona out in tears before a Champions League final having watched images from Gladiator.
Now he says: “The main thing is that we start the moves intelligently.”
The sun may still come up for the likes of John Stones if he shows Pep one or two new ways to lose, while starting moves intelligently.
But will he ever be ready for the opponent who puts his life into a 50/50 tackle?
Heroes & Villains
WYSIWYG. Who was the biggest influence on your career? “I was”. The biggest inspiration? “My biggest inspiration has always been myself”. This man will never see the need to cod us with false modesty.
Mightn’t be going so well on the pitch, but struck a timely blow against the cult of the celebrity ref by professing complete ignorance as to who he was ranting about against Southampton.
Has always been man enough to cop flak when it was due. Latest admission on behalf of his old Leeds side; that they were the first to take the ball into the corners to waste time.
A love-in with Klopp, a warning that clubs can lose their identities by changing managers too often. He hasn’t lost that ability to send a message in an interview.
Word reaches that an unnamed radio pundit referring to a rugby match as a ‘man-up-athon’. Egregious!
