Constrain/enable

To constrain or to enable? Political theorists throughout history have been unable to decide whether we need government because human nature is ultimately good (and the state helps make us better) or bad (and the state keeps us in line). When football reflects politics however, things are much more black and white: fans are a malevolent bunch.

This is why we all need Jose Mourinho. He appeals to the darker side of our nature, inherent to some extent in every football fan. His sides strangle, frustrate and goad like no other at the highest level, offering something we crave but rarely openly acknowledge: ugly winning football as a wind-up. Leveling the playing field by pulling others down rather than elevating ourselves up.

We all love a wind-up, when those who are beginning to take themselves a bit too seriously get knocked down a peg or two, and rant and rave about just how unfair everything is. Toys out the pram. It’s a brilliant spectacle and Mourinho delivers every time.

A Jose victory or a Jose trophy inevitably feels like (or is taken by bested rivals as) an injustice. Somewhere along the line, when the officials weren’t looking he has stuck the knife in and influenced this or fiddled with that. A bastard victory, where football has cheated on its noble principles, seduced by some scummy creature of the night. In all the 90 minutes of the 36 game season, 5 seconds of Jose made the difference.

***

Anfield, Sunday April 27, 2014. Which genuinely neutral observer doesn’t want Gerrard to win a Premier League titles as reward for the loyalty he’s shown his boyhood club? What better way for him to do it than as the reborn lynchpin of a young, attacking side, surrounded by exciting England players that he captains for club and country? And who better to do it against than the scrooge of world football?  

It had to be Mourinho. It wouldn’t be nearly so satisfying otherwise. Who wouldn’t want to be a fly on the wall in a Red house or pub when those extended shots of Jose in his gilet pumping his arms and beating his chest came on? Sunday’s match was seen as good vs. evil, and evil won. This wound the Liverpool fans up much more than if they had been beaten by City or Bayern or Real.

Social media and digital television whip the now bi-weekly games into a hurricane of hyperbole, and woe betides any in the way: “DEATH OF FOOTBALL”; “HOMOCIDE BY PARKED BUS”; “MEDIEVAL METHODS TO BE REVIVED FOR REF TORTURE POST PEN-GATE”. Atop these biblical storms are the deities, those committed to a football so pure that viewing their performances through an unfiltered (i.e. critical) lens is blasphemy: the Guardiolas, Klopps, Rodgerses. That they sit there is not an issue – the football they play is breath-taking. The problem is those elevating them.

It’s hard to escape the feeling that players are increasingly less bothered, as the game becomes more international and the rise of the career footballer, only in it to pay the bills, increases. Competition has always been just as ferocious, if not more so, off the pitch than on it, and the internet has blown this competition into a new dimension.

An example. A while back on a midweek Guardian article I can no longer recall, below the belt of adverts that separates the asinine from the ridiculous, a prominent contributor was justifying his absence. His team had lost at the weekend and he was being ‘called out’ for not being there to answer the erudite post-match analysis of co-commenters (“bbhaaaaa…your team are shit!”). Sorry he said; I had to travel from Durban to Johannesburg for my uncle’s funeral. 

That this person felt obliged to share intimate personal details with strangers he’s never met demonstrates a prominent strain of 21^st Century football fan culture. Although someone mercifully replied saying that no one should ever have to justify not commenting on a Guardian article period, let alone in such circumstances, the obligation the bereaved felt to engage with rival fans sums up the environment in which Mourinho’s work is most appreciated.

The majority of us can follow football without this level of pettiness, but just because our more vitriolic thoughts are not always shared, doesn’t mean they don’t form. In fact, if Twitter and comment feeds weren’t such oppressively point-scoring arenas, where the slightest deviance is pounced on and ridiculed for likes/retweets/recommends, the debates might be broader and the arguments less petty. But they are. So enter Mourinho.

***

When those at Anfield were really starting to believe, Jose turned up. When Wenger’s demise seemed to signal United’s dominance for time immemorial, he was there. When Barca’s sugar-sweet short passing was becoming sickly and their much-misquoted Mes que un club (here meaning holier than thou) mantra force-fed to all social media by thousands of tiny, nippy 14 year old ants; Jose was drafted in.

If Guardiola’s Barca were a U-rated family classic you could show 5 year-olds for generations, Mourinho’s Real were pure Tarantino: violent and fast-paced with a great soundtrack, made by a man who is as much a genius as he is a prick.

How long before you felt safe admitting it did you think that Barca under Guardiola were a wee bit boring, yearning for the odd ping from 30 yards, begging them to sacrificing 71 per cent total possession for 69 and take a risk? Few fans would turn down the whimsical notion of the elegance, technical brilliance and game-dominance (not to mention trophy haul) Guardiola brings being transposed onto the team they support. But that’s not to say that watching Mourinho smash it all up wasn’t incredibly cathartic.

The gripe wasn’t with the players per se, but with those who appropriated their performances and used them against other teams, or more specifically, other fans; either explicitly (you lot are anti-football compared to us) or implicitly (we do things the right way).

It’s very difficult to wind millions of people up simultaneously just by winning a game of football: there will always be zealots but the majority will usually be fairly happy to shrug and move on. Which is why to really get to those at the top, every now and then you need more than a defeat. You’ve been hurt and you want them to hurt too. You need an injustice.

Nothing gets the juices going like feeling you’ve been robbed in sport, and displaying the scars for years reminds fans who told us all their teams were untouchable that they are not. You don’t want your club to be associated with negativity, cynicism and intimidation, but watching Mourinho’s dish it out on others satisfies the darker side of our nature. He emancipates through constraint like no other.

***

Acknowledging we need Mourinho doesn’t justify all his behaviour or give him license to call the tune unchallenged. Irritating? Yes. Hypocritical? Yes. Out of line? Undoubtedly. But aren’t we all sometimes? It comes with the territory of being a fan, and more than that it’s part of the fun: being able to explore some of the darker sides of human nature in an environment where bad behaviour is considered part of the territory. Following football is a release value as well as a pressure cooker, and Mourhino is the prick that reduces puffed-up pretention and helps us all blow off some steam.

SidLowe writes brilliantly about how Barca and Madrid fans identify more withhating their rival than backing their team. There are plenty of fancy names for this in social sciences, but it’s as raw in football fans as it is anywhere else and it’s known as support. A primal urge that may be hereditary, or may have been consciously adopted a matter of months ago, and only appears for a few minutes every year. Either way, it exists and it stings strong.

Mourinho scratches the itch perfectly, etching reality into those who feel untouchable. In a sea of blunt objects he’s the edge everyone can feel but no one can handle. By scratching he actually makes it worse for us, prolonging a healing process that might tone down the frequently ridiculous rhetoric, see us all become friends, or at least help us respect each other, one day. But damn it feels good at the time.

Mourinho provides a quiet satisfaction, enjoyed solitarily with just your imagination – becoming a fly in front-rooms and bars and bedrooms across the world. He affects victims in such a way that you don’t need to ask whether a nerve has been touched. They know they’ve been Jose’d. When you let them know they’re bothering you, they’ve won.

It’s not just about dishing it out though. There is no real way of following football and escaping Mourinho, of not getting sucked in, and when it’s your turn you have to take it, try and see the funny side and remember how much you enjoyed being the observer rather than the target. A quest to win every trophy he can means Jose’ll probably be coming to a league near you soon, if he hasn’t already. Don’t thinkyou’ll be the one who changes him.

Not that there is any real reason he should change. Football is much more than just a game, but that’s down to us, the fans, not Jose Mourinho. He gets paid to do what he loves and is hugely successful. His football can be exciting, dynamic, innovative and most of all entertaining. How many people in the world have watched a Jose team on TV at some point? How many will tune in again? Imagine if he manages at a World Cup. What better gauge for entertainment is there than repeat custom from millions worldwide?

***

History has shown there will always be artists. No need to worry that we won’t be spell-bound in future by a team playing in a way that no one for a time can fathom, let alone handle. But history has also shown that art becomes stale. Better to go up in flames than fade away. Mourinho’s got plenty of petrol left in the tank, and comes with all the sparks required.

That’s ultimately good for football. The unerring accuracy Mourinho displays when hecomes at the king, combined with his inability or unwillingness to hold the job himself keeps things at the top fresh. Fans need him to put others in their place, and remind us of our own mortality. To constrain or enable? Jose does both.