The Ideal Choice for England? Not Mourinho
The sacking of McLaren on Thursday came as no surprise. To be honest, even if England had qualified, McLaren would have been unemployed next summer. Another thing that was not surprising was Mourinho’s emergence as most fans’ favourite to take the England job. With an amazing record at Chelsea and Porto in the past several years, an attitude which makes him hated by all of his opponents and his ability to keep even the most pretentious player in check it sounds reasonable to think that he would really be the perfect man. But would he really be as good most think he will be? I think not.
I am not looking at the obstacles within the squad, the quality of the players or pressures from the FA, media and ultimately fans who think they can do a better job. We know he can handle those issues. The problem is that Mourinho would not be able to take full advantage of the quality that makes him such a good manager.
Looking back to his Chelsea days, The Special One seemed to have a way with his players. He managed to get what he wanted from his players and they respected him as though he was a god. Looking at his treatment of Wright-Phillips, whose receipt suggested that he was as good as Rooney –which certainly was not the case– we can understand his philosophy.
Wright-Phillips was horrible when he first came at Chelsea and his first performances showed that a lot of work was to be done with what was once a very promising youngster. Instead of blasting him or admitting that he was gravely mistaken in paying that much money for him –something he would never do– The Special One began working with the diminutive winger. Over the next season and a half he was limited to appearances in meaningless matches and cameos in already won matches. And then he burst out and started to play well. So well in fact that he managed to hold down a place in the team for short periods of time. At the start of the current season he was almost never absent from the Chelsea team and for good reason: he was playing very well.
I could be wrong, but the development of Wright-Phillips suggests much about Mourinho. It shows that he is most effective on the training ground. Mourinho developed Wright-Phillips as he wished: he concentrated on the player’s discipline and technical abilities in which he was most interested. It is not only Wright-Philips that Mourinho has moulded into a more pleasant shape, other Chelsea start such as Drogba, Essien and Mikel have all been altered by the Special One.
Not much was to be done with Drogba or Essien as far as technical abilities go, but they lacked serious discipline and could not fit into the style of play of the team. After what was probably a never-ending amount of work on the training field, these two have not become among the Premier League’s most efficient players. Ultimately they were also the players which proved to be so crucial in Mourinho’s success at Chelsea.
If he takes the England job, Mourinho will not have the time to manage his players as he likes. Not only will they not have that level of discipline that is so very crucial in a team which chooses to play conservative football, but they will not be trained to play with each other. Given time with his players, Mourinho could achieve anything he sets his mind to, but that commodity is not there if you are the manager of a national team.
Managing a team where your players do not play exactly as you want them to because there is no time to train them, your player’s fitness level are out of your hands and there is no chance that any of them will actually put in an hour worth of effort while they play for you will be extremely difficult. Given that Mourinho is among those few people in the world who could motivate Gerrard, Lampard & Co., he will still have a mammoth task in developing a tactic which could turn England into a fearful team. For these reasons, Mourinho does not seem to be the perfect candidate. Someone like Capello or Klinsmann seems more suited for a job where the manager has to work with what he’s given.
The first task of the next man to be handed an office at Soho Square will be to ensure that England qualify for the next World Cup, at the expense of one of those teams who are actually good. The next would be to take England as far as possible. Failure to achieve the first task will make him a hated individual. Taking England to the last four in South Africa will make him a god for those who can understand football. A World Cup final would make him bigger than Ferguson and Wenger together. But let’s not get carried away…
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I agree with this article completely, but not for all the same reasons. As much as i respect Mourinho, i’m not jumping on the bandwagon of fans who think he’s ‘The Special One’ for every situation. I’ve outlined my reasons for this in another post for another article & i reiterate my position here too.
As for Fabio Capello, i think he’d be an absolutely excellent choice. Forget Klinsmann & Lippi, they wouldn’t do it & they shouldn’t do it. We need someone who’s as tough as nails & Capello would be the one in my book. It helps that he’s enthusiastic for the job which means that he might have some ideas already.
As a Chelsea supporter and a man deeply upset when Mourinho left, I came into this article expecting to disagree with it.
However, you points really impress me. I think you are spot on with your comment that “Mourinho will not have the time to manage his players as he likes. Not only will they not have that level of discipline that is so very crucial in a team which chooses to play conservative football, but they will not be trained to play with each other.”
Part of his success was that he had time to construct the Chelsea giant. However, I would like to point out a couple things in Mourinho’s defense that I believe he would bring positives to for the Three Lions.
1. Gerrard/Lampard pairing: Chelsea was so confident in Mourinho’s ability to have these two work together in the midfield that they made a decent attempt to secure Gerrard’s transfer in 2005 after the Champions LEague final. I believe Mourinho would finally give them success int he midfield; both are world class players, and by establishing roles, I feel that Mourinho would have Lampard take over attacking duty while transforming Gerrrd’s role into the holding midfielder/distributor on offense. Part of McClaren’s failure was to not establish these definitive roles, of which both players are perfectly molded for.
2. Tactics: Mourinho is one of, if not the, best football tacticians in the entire world. I strongly believe that if Mourinho were coaching the Croatia match, England would have prevailed. Why? Not only does Jose make the right picks to start the game, no manager makes better changes at halftime than he. I remeber the Chelsea @ Reading match earlier this season, where the Blues looked completely uninspired and shitty for the first half. Mourinho made a couple of changes, and Chelsea went ahead within 15 minutes, looking like an absolute powerhouse.
3. Proven Record: Unbeaten at Stamford Bridge, if I recall correctly (can be disputed based on certain cups/tournaments). Great away record. Two Prem titles. Not all of it is from Roman’s bank account. The guy simply refuses to allow his side to lose.
You can’t single out one instance where Mourinho has developed a player and use that as a basis for his talents. Everyone knows that Mourinho’s ’special’ talent has always been motivating players. His ability to do this comes from his never ending competitive streak. He would never admit that it was his tactics that lost a game, to him it was always the refs fault. And if you ever watched him on the sidelines he was always into the game, and he showed it. You can’t say Mourinho’s special talent is developing players because he never did anything like Ferguson or Wenger has done and actually brought up a good crop of players from the youth system. That’s like saying Ferguson developed Rooney because he bought him when he was 16. Any manager worth their pay should be able to mold players like Wright-Phillips and Rooney into stars, you could just tell with their talent level.
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Mark, Ferguson did not mould Rooney into a superstar, he just nurtured his talent. Mourinho took the time to teach SWP what was required of him. I used his example because it is the most striking one, but there are other players at the Bridge who have gone the same way as Wright-Phillips, although maybe not as radically. SWP who played somewhere between midfield and attack when he was at Man City now has a clear job and a specialization. This is all due to Mourinho and if there was time Gerrard could be moulded similarly to play with Frank.
Brian you are tottaly right, those three reasons are just a few arguments Pro-Mourinho, but we could easily name 20. I would like to point out however that he is not afraid to make a substitution. Look at Macca and the Russia game where he made his first substitution in the 82nd minute. That is just outrageous, if a pleyer is not playing well a manager should have the guts to pull him out. Remeber the substitution of Del Horno in the match against Newcastle? 35th minute and he was not injured or booked.
Spiral Architect, I am totaly for Cappelo but I think that he would be kidding himslef if he thinks he already has an idea of how to manage the squad. A manager needs to see what is happening with the player and what they are all capable of before making up his tactics. Klinsman, I would love. He is already proven at that level and has the abilty to turn this team inside-out + he knows English. Anyway I am a bit worried about Cappelo because of what he has done last season at Real. He won the title on the back of some spectacular comebacks (4-3 Espanyol), but really his team was miserable and they capitalized on Barca not being able to win at Celta Vigo if I am not mistaken. Other than that, his record in Italy is superb.
Andrei -
All valid points. But Klinsmann doesn’t want to budge from California & did a lot of his managing by phone/fax/email etc. Is that really what England needs? I guess in one positive way it keeps him out of reach of the press but in another way i don’t know if English football is set up for that kind of control to be handed over to Klinsmann. As for Capello, maybe he’ll inject some sensibility & grit into the English defensive tactics at the very least. You can always build up from there. As for the language problem, that can be a concern but it has to be weighed against what the FA wants & needs from its manager.
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SpiralArchitect, language won’t be a problem for Capello on two grounds.
First, Glen Hoddle and Howard Wilkinson have experience of him coaching English youngsters and say that Capello is perfectly capable of communicating in football-speak on the training pitch, in English (Sportsweek, Five Alive 25.11.07).
Second, Capello has already gone on record as saying that he would bring Gianfranco Zola (the former Chelsea and Italy forward) in as a coaching assistant. Zola would be ideal because he is fluent in Italian and English, and also because he is a smashing young coach on the way up.
However, I would not appoint Capello unless you also had an assistant English coach like Alan Shearer or Tony Adams. An English input from someone who has recently finished playing, is essential. Zola would be the linguistic bridge where necessary between Capello and an English coach/players.
Anyway Capello would have about six months to really brush up his English before taking the side into a competitive fixture. That should be long enough.
This is so simple as that: Mourinho will never train England, because he’s againist foreign trainers in National Teams.
Spiral Architect, how does it affect the team if the coach is miles away when he does not spend time with the players?
He would definetley be there during, before and after games, but there is not reason for him to spend time in England while the players are off playing for their teams. Is there? He would get the game tapes anyway and would be able to watch the players from that camera which shows the whole pitch and the purpose of attending games would be defeated. Yes, it wil tire him, but might not have much effect on the actual team as long as he is professional.