Winning Chip

We were crammed into a small classroom at the University of Sydney in Camperdown. Our tutor was vigorously trying to make a point as he huffed and puffed through his bushy white whiskers. I could not help thinking, as I looked at him, that he could so easily have passed for a brickie on a building site. Yet this was far from your everyday hod carrier, for our mentor was none other than the award-winning Australian writer Terry Dowling, a close peer of the late Jack Vance.

Terry was leading a workshop on fantasy writing, and desperately trying to impress upon us the importance of getting words down on the page.  I can’t remember the precise wording of his plea now, but he was basically saying that our source of inspiration didn’t matter, so long as the blank page was filled with words. The motivation behind our writing could be passion, it could be ambition, it could be a need or desire for money, it could be trying to prove people wrong, or it could even simply be about trying to impress a chick you fancied. It didn’t matter, so long as the words went down on the page.

I’ve often thought about this, when wondering what part the Yin and the Yang play in a person’s source of motivation. And I guess it is true that some of the most ‘successful’ people in life don’t always have the most positive sentiments as their driver. All too often have we heard about greed being the main fuel for rampant capitalist achievement, but there’s definitely other spurs too. One of which might be the need to feel accepted, in order to disprove the fact that you’re not good enough.

 

 

It’s often something as simple as this which fires a person up to reach lofty heights. This is certainly true of football, which brings us to Mr Chippy himself.

 

The myth goes something like this. Jose Mourinho's dream - like zillions of other boys - was to make the grade as a successful professional football player. But he never quite cut the mustard, languishing with poor sides in lower divisions until his career fizzled away. How distraught he must have been, to fall short of his old man's standards. For Mourinho Snr was a former goalkeeper who had graced the Portuguese top flight, and even went on to earn a cap for Portugal.

So Jose was hardly a chip of the old block, but wait! His pops Felix had also made it as a manager, so some form of face saving in his father’s eyes (or at least in young Jose's own mind) was still achievable. Armed with this burning chip on his shoulder, Jose plunged into Physical Education and football management, punching for the stars.

And how he soared!

 

 

I first recall him prowling the touchline in the UEFA cup final of 2003. It was the year in which he first got his hands on European silverware, as his Porto outwitted Martin O’Neill’s excellent Celtic side (probably the last great Scottish side to grace Europe) to win the UEFA Cup. His Dragons went on to win the Champions League the following year, a remarkable feat which boosted his profile as Jose became famous for his exuberant celebrations whenever his side scored, which included sliding on his knees across the turf in his dapper suits to express his delight (and that of his drycleaner).

Joining Chelsea changed both his fortunes and those of the London club forever. Overall he splashed the Russian petrodollars wisely, winning back to back leagues and smashing the Ferguson-Wenger stranglehold on the EPL. It was then that he first started to get a bit cocky, picking up an unfortunate tendency to constantly goad and diss his fellow managers. It was ok to do so as long as he kept on winning, and win he did at an alarming rate, securing back to back titles at Stamford Bridge. After falling out with Chelsea president Abrahmovich amid the whole Shevchenko saga, he was hired by Inter Milan.

He instantly secured the scudetto, then spent even more Italian petrodollars the following summer. After landing five guns in Eto’o, Motta, Milito, Lucio and Sneijder during the transfer window, he went on to clinch the treble, thereby fulfilling president Massimo Moratti’s boyhood dream of winning the European Cup. During his two years at Inter Milan his added trophies further encouraged his tendency to publicly rubbish other managers, with his relentless baiting of Roma’s Claudio Ranieri (who he instantly branded ‘zeru tituli’) even disturbing neutrals like me.

 

 

This high handed attitude seemed to go hand in hand with his manic celebrations whenever his side prevailed, before literally going into overdrive when he accepted the offer of Real Madrid President Florentino Perez.

At the time Mourinho appeared invincible, and many shuddered to think what he might achieve with the Merengues. Yet he had suddenly found himself in a court possessed of more cloak and dagger intrigue than an episode of the Borgias. He also had to contend with the small challenge of Guardiola’s Barcelona, the best club side the world had ever seen. When faced with these immense challenges the chip on his shoulder burned worse than before, and in a moment of madness he made the whole of Spain shudder as he poked the late Tito Vilanova in the eye.

It was always going to take time to entrench himself as the main man at the Bernabeu, but for a time he seemed to be winning. During his first year he secured the King’s Cup against Guardiola’s men, and also prevailed in his internal feud with Maradona’s old mate, the sporting director Jorge Valdano. In his second season he went on to clinch La Liga, and it seemed that he was destined to conquer Europe with Madrid. Yet La Decima remained elusive, and his third season with the club was disrupted by a dressing room rebellion of seismic proportions, in which Jose’s Portuguese compatriots also turned on him.

 

 

Few could have foreseen this vicious uprising led by Casillas and Ramos, which saw him hit a brick wall for the first time in his career. Besides finding himself surplus to requirements, he had also ended a season empty handed after nine uninterrupted years spent securing winners’ medals. For the first time he appeared somewhat shaken. Three years at the Bernabeu had left him leaner than a sundried fishbone, and his hair was whiter than a freshly pressed Madrid shirt.

Salt was promptly added to the wound when Manchester United ignored his years of overtures to appoint David Moyes as their new manager. On his part Jose did his best to pretend that this didn’t matter, immediately accepting Abrahmovich’s offer to return to Chelsea. They say that one should never go back, and during his first season with the Londoners silverware eluded him one more time.

Mourinho attempted to play this down, claiming that his side were ‘babies’ last year, and that it would take a season to get them ready to become EPL pretenders. Yet the cracks had already started to appear, as evidenced by his toe-curling tirade at Arsene Wenger, branding the Frenchman a ‘specialist in failure’ after the Arsenal coach had said that Mou was afraid to admit that Chelsea were genuine title contenders because he was afraid of failure.

Wenger ironically went on to break his eight year trophyless streak, securing the FA Cup against Hull City whilst Jose went a second year without winning anything. And although you might get away with slagging people off when you’re winning, it’s an entirely different kettle of fish to do so when you’re not. Jose knows this, and the chip that once made him a winner might now be starting to weigh him down a little bit.

His rant about Manuel Pellegrini earlier this week might hint at this, with Jose dismissively referring to the Chilean manager of Manchester City as ‘Mr Pellegrino’, as if he was ignorant to the identity of the manager whom he brutally displaced at Real Madrid.

Mou’s nervousness is understandable, for the vultures have started to circle more closely. His former charge Samuel Eto’o has openly referred to him as a ‘fool’ and a ‘puppet’, and this verbal roasting was recently followed by the publication of a book by his old rival Valdano, who wrote that he’d ‘never heard in public or in private a football statement from Mourinho worthy to be remembered’.

 

 

Ironically enough, Manuel Pellegrini does have the cast of a vulture about him, although he is by all accounts one of the good guys in football, loved by his players and supporters alike. He is also said to be one of the gentlemen in world football, renowned for always keeping his calm and never engaging in cheap swipes. Which make his remarks about Chelsea playing like a ‘small club’ all the more remarkable. It seems that even Pellegrini is smelling blood, and resorting to sticking the knife in whilst he can.

All of which makes this year all the more crucial for Mourinho to land some form of silveware. Jose has often deflected criticisms of himself onto others, once describing his desire to win the Champions League as a ‘dream' and not the 'obsession’ held by Guardiola's Barca.  Further proof, if any were needed, that besides being combative, Mou remains an expert at publicly thrusting his weaknesses onto others.

As his Chelsea side prepare to face high-flying Aston Villa this weekend, the significance of this season will not be lost on him. Jose knows that his career is slowly - and unbelievably - coming under the microscope. Three years without a trophy does not bear contemplating, especially given the summer’s outlay on the likes of Costa and Fabregas.

I would not bet on him going another season empty-handed, since it would be foolhardy to underestimate his winning chip. But if Jose’s outing against Paul Lambert’s Villans proves to be a banana skin to Chelsea’s title hopes, expect perfect silence to fall across the room when the press ask Jose about the Villa manager’s post-match comments.