Football: Fanfare plus business

AUTHOR of cerebral soccer books like Football Against The Enemy and Why England Lose, Simon Kuper is one of those rare sportswriters whose work never fails to fascinate.

His new offering is yet another must-read. The Football Men is a collection of profiles of footballers and managers.

“I’ve been doing this for 25 years, so it’s everyone from David Beckham to Jorge Valdano,” says Kuper, “Everyone from Anthony Minghella to Lionel Messi.

“I tried to produce a composite portrait of what these people are like as a profession, what modern football is and who these people are. And part of that was reading footballers’ biographies – Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Ashley Cole.”

Oh dear.

“Yeah, I read about 2,000 pages of footballers’ biographies.”

Kuper did well to retain his sanity in that trial by fire but learned something about the players along the way.

“Well, they don’t think it’s much fun,” he says.

“There’s a lot of complaining about what it’s like to be a footballer. It’s clear they’re not ‘living the dream’. For most of them it was clear from the age of about six that they’d be doing this, and they see it as a career, so it’s not so different from being an accountant or a surgeon.

“It’s a well-paid career and you do what’s right for you, so the idea of loyalty to the club as fans understand it, doesn’t exist. They were never really fans, as they were focused on a professional career from the age of six or so.”

So is it unrealistic for a club’s fans to expect players to share their love for the jersey?

“When Wayne Rooney wanted to leave Man United last year the fans of the club were horrified. How could he want to leave United and so on. What I’d ask those fans is this: if they worked for a bank or school would they love that bank or school? Very few of them would say that.

“Ryan Giggs has never left Man United, but then, Ryan Giggs has a very good employee-employer relationship with the club and has had no reason to leave.

“It makes more sense to see footballers as employees rather than anything else.”

A central figure in the book is Jose Mourinho. Kuper delved into the Real Madrid manager’s background to get an insight.

“We’re all shaped by what happened to us in childhood, and I tried to show these people as normal human beings rather than superhumans.

“Jose Mourinho, for instance, grew up in a very wealthy setting, his great-uncle had huge estates under the Portuguese dictator, Salazar.

“The young Jose grew up playing football with the servants, got a very expensive private education – hence the language skills which have served him so well in his career.

“Then in 1974 came the Carnation Revolution in Portugal and his family lost the estate, so as a child he suddenly saw this ideal world taken away. That’s what changes people into conspiracy theorists, particularly people from poorer countries, because they’re aware that a force can come in from outside and take everything away.

“When Mourinho says there’s an anti-Real Madrid conspiracy which favours Barcelona, or that the Premier League conspired against Chelsea, to us that sounds crazy, but he really believes that.

“His wife had a similar experience. She was raised as a Portuguese colonist in Angola, and when the native Africans took over the country her family, and others, were stranded. “Her father was in the resistance which fought the new regime and was paralysed, so she too lost her childhood realm in an instant.”

Footballers are generally different and Kuper explains why they’re more like businessmen than pop idols these days.

“Journalists like us like players who are more rounded as individuals, but that doesn’t necessarily help them as players or managers. One of the most rounded people I’ve met in football was Frank Rijkaard, but I don’t think that made him a better manager.

“Certainly the trend in football over the last 30 years or so has created less rounded characters. Players are selected for academies when younger, the schooling’s curtailed for those kids, who are discouraged from taking an interest in things outside football because it wastes energy, they don’t go outside that much.

“You end up with someone like Wayne Rooney, who doesn’t have much of a life outside football and stays at home watching television because there’s not much else to do. It’s more the monomaniac corporate executive.”

The recent Champions League final was a good study in managerial contrasts. How does Kuper rate Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola?

“I reckon very few football managers actually make a difference. If you or I were managing Man United they’d do pretty well, because they’ve got very good players. The same with Barcelona.

“In Why England Lose we estimated that maybe ten per cent of managers make a difference, and Alex Ferguson would certainly be in that 10%. A team does better with him as manager.

“Guardiola as a manager? I’m not so sure, but as a person I’d find him more appealing – more laid-back, more calm, funnier, while Ferguson has more of a conspiracy theorist outlook.

“But having said that, my taste in who I’d like to have a beer with doesn’t have to coincide with who I think would be a better manager!”

* The Football Men: Up Close With The Giants Of The Modern Game by Simon Kuper (Simon and Schuster, €19.50)