MACHIAVELLI VS. MACHIAVELLI: The Second Coming of Mr. José Mourinho
Until his stunning downfall, Mr. José Mourinho was the quintessential Machiavelli — a pragmatist and a survivor in the post-football world of football. Unlike his Italian counterpart of centuries past, though, can the Portuguese stage a stunning comeback?
While that slip in 2014 will always define Mr. Steven Gerrard’s relationship with Chelsea Football Club, his howler in the League Cup Final of nine years earlier should arguably garner more attention. Not because of anything the Liverpool captain with an unfortunate forward hairline did in its immediate aftermath, but because it unwittingly set the stage for the most irresistibly, charismatically exhausting performance in recent history.
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Of course Gerrard would be caught in a maelstrom over his impending move to Chelsea. Of course he would face Chelsea in a cup final. And of course he would try to clear a free kick and contrive to guide the ball into his own net, sounding the death knell on Liverpool’s trophy aspirations (happily forgotten in the drunken stupor of Istanbul three months later).
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If there were such a thing as a curse on that hapless explorer who attempts to discover a lost pharaoh’s tomb only to slip to his doom, then surely Gerrard and Chelsea’s defence could relate. The dismal relationship that the now Rangers manager endured with the West London club, then, is conversely mirrored by the stark decline from mockery to meek surrender on part of Mr. José Mourinho.
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By February of his first season at Stamford Bridge, Mourinho had already established himself as the white tiger of European football. Even in the early-noughties press conference minefield of Messrs. Alex Ferguson and Arséne Wenger, Mourinho’s penchant for charming sarcasm and the labyrinthine mind game — least of all that introductory press conference the year before — had seen him become the most rarefied of football commodities: the character. Mourinho’s quips made him instantly identifiable — deified by West London, begrudgingly admired by the rest.
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As Gerrard stared at everything and nothing in disbelief, Mourinho immediately wheeled away to his left. Strutting across the front row of Liverpool fans, he tapped his index finger on his pursed lips repeatedly, in perhaps the most universal of signs: sshh.
That he was sent with alacrity to the stands of an incensed Anfield was not surprising. Neither was his admission, if admissions are always assumed to be true, that his pointed mockery was aimed at a biased press rather than the long-suffering Liverpool faithful.
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But the least surprising occurrence that night was Mourinho turning a lacklustre game into his own crowning ceremony. Gentle mockery, subtle smirks, calculated outrage, incessant theatre and, most importantly, an undisputed run of victories had transformed the bright, brash, young renegade into the foremost Machiavellian thinker of his footballing time.
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It was also, then, particularly Machiavellian to see a beleaguered Mourinho shaking hands with an incandescent Mr. Jürgen Klopp thirteen years later, in December of 2018, this time at a happily raucous Anfield. After half a season of public tantrums and private/public fall-outs (re: Mr. Paul Pogba), the Portuguese’s United had gotten on their knees in the first minute, lathered their necks with a heavy dose of lethargic submission and waited for the ruthless Liverpool guillotine to fall.
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And fall it did, first with a 3-1 defeat in what arguably was United’s nadir in the post-Ferguson era (and this includes the 80 odd crosses against Fulham in that 2-2 draw under Mr. David Moyes) and then with the immediate sacking of Mourinho. In the end, even Machiavelli was exiled from Florence.
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Which is why Mourinho’s turn at Tottenham is all the more compelling. The assertion that he is the quintessential Machiavellian man is correct; this much we will see imminently. But unlike the Italian, the Portuguese will be back.
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We are in a world where money hovers above every footballing decision like the prudent dictator, sneakily rubbing two fat hands in glee at the prospect of snuffing out any hint of subversion to the established order. This is the post-football world of football, where football figures last when making footballing decisions.
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There’s no real magic in this world. If there ever was, it’s gone. Stadiums increasingly resemble monolithic, cavernous funeral homes where fanfare and passion are stifled in favour of the prawn sandwich brigade, drinking imported champagne in air-conditioned spaceships. There’s just about enough space for a game of football to take place once in a wee while.
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Football was dragged screaming, kicking, yelling and wincing back from the throes of coronavirus, ostensibly for an injection of passion for a bored civilisation, but in reality to counter the massive global television and revenue losses. We are in a world where money hovers above every footballing decision like the prudent dictator, sneakily rubbing two fat hands in glee at the prospect of snuffing out any hint of subversion to the established order.
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This is the post-football world of football, where football figures last when making footballing decisions. Where Manchester City, despite sincere visions about philosophy, education and a pan-national vision, debate in hushed whispers as to whether Mr. Pep Guardiola’s lack of European success trumps the immunity his genius would usually afford him. Winning for the prize money, then, is king.
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It is in this cutthroat court of monetary hegemony that Mr. José Mourinho has operated in for much of his career. Indeed, it is strikingly similar to the tumult of political life in Mr. Niccolò Machiavelli’s Florence, a haven of debauchery, intellect, art, culture and the constant politicking required as a politician to stave off a public lynching. In both Machiavelli and Mourinho, we see figures whose practicality and pragmatism stem from making the best of the circumstances fortune has mired them in.
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The most quoted line in The Prince states “it is better to be feared rather than loved, if you cannot be both.” This is the cautious approach, of course. Love never inspires an aura of determination. Fear inspires, well, fear.
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When Mourinho cockily announced that he was “a special one,” one would have been hard pressed to ignore him. Here’s someone to look out for. Here’s the next threat. The new kid on the block, full of hardened grit rather than hardened hair gel. The perception of Chelsea as gritty, tenacious, skillful and, above all, winners, was built before Mourinho’s Chelsea had kicked a ball. And kick they did, leaving the rest of the chasing pack slipping in Russian oil slick, which drives home that other Machiavellian tenet, that a ruler cannot make threats if he doesn’t have the army to back him up. And so fear works. Chelsea in the mid-noughties proved it so, although Mourinho is also loved. Passionately. Ask that Chelsea generation. Ask Inter.
Of course, the purists will cry foul. Mourinho’s too arrogant to ever don a cloak of respectability. His football isn’t pretty, because while Klopp and Guardiola worship the ball, Mourinho has won the Champions League without it.
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Humans are born to gaze at the stars in order to reach them. Pragmatists dig through the dirt.
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For as much as defence is pragmatic, it is also an art. Everybody loves a grand generalization so here’s one for the ages: Pragmatism is an underappreciated art. The most underappreciated, in actual fact. The greatest purists of the game have all been pragmatists. Cruyff didn’t invent the Cruyff Turn out of devoted worship to football’s romanticism; he invented it because it was the most practical way of getting past a defender. Indeed, when one reads Cruyff’s astutely titled autobiography My Turn, one is struck by how pragmatic the purist’s purist was. The romantic might attain success without it, but pragmatism is a surefire way of reaching the pinnacle of your choosing.
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The pragmatist, however, requires thick skin, and then some. Humans are born to gaze at the stars in order to reach them. Pragmatists dig through the dirt. Questions over morality and the ‘right’ way will chase a pragmatist like a seagull chases a trawler, especially in a footballing culture increasingly obsessed with philosophies. The man who prophesizes in the light is adored. The man who meets the Devil at midnight’s crossroads is hated, but never ignored.
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Mourinho is no different. While poking the late Mr. Tito Vilanova in the eye and branding the elegant Mr. Arséne Wenger a “specialist in failure” do not particularly reek of class, it is worth noting the following introspective maxim from Machiavelli: “If you think about it, there will always be something that looks morally right but would actually lead a ruler to disaster, and something else that looks wrong but will bring security and success.”
The Vilanova spat illustrated the abject heights of bitterness and acrimony the Madrid-Barcelona schism had reached. Mr. Pep Guardiola resigned out of exhaustion as the high priest of tiki taka, and his subsequent European failures highlight how bloody good Madrid under Mourinho had to be to stop the Catalans. Wenger’s Arsenal, on the other hand, began the Mourinho era as the Invincibles. By the time the Frenchman retired, Arsenal had stumbled to two victories in 19 meetings with Mourinho’s men.
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To paraphrase a typical quip from Peaky Blinders, the show that deifies in Mr. Thomas Shelby another epitome of Machiavellian thought, Mourinho is a bad man. But he’s someone’s bad man. He’s Spurs’ bad man, just like he was Porto’s, Chelsea’s, Inter’s, Madrid’s, Chelsea’s and, birefly, United’s. Why do we revere Maradona? Because while its lack of morality is still startling, the villainous charm required to deem a heinous handball as the “Hand of God” is downright irresistible. It’s why we worship Mr. Heath Ledger’s Joker, not Mr. Christian Bale’s Batman. Or Mr. Amjad Khan’s Gabbar, not Mr. Amitabh Bachchan’s Jai in Sholay. Mr. Alain Delon’s Tom Ripley, not Mr. Maurice Ronet’s Phillipe Greenleaf in Plein Soleil.
Mourinho is Iago at the Globe, performing sleights of hand on unsuspecting noblemen and carefully orchestrating the sacking of cathedrals, all with a gentle, all-knowing smirk that belies the hysterical mirth and glee inside. He is an incessant performance. And you so wish you could be him.
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Mourinho...seems to have forgotten that for all the waltzes with the Devil in the pale moonlight, one must be careful not to stick around for a hung-over breakfast too.
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Success, however, cannot last forever. Even Mr. Cesare Borgia, the man The Prince pretty much deified, came unstuck once his father — the Pope — fell inexplicably ill.
Mourinho, for his part, seems to have forgotten that for all the waltzes with the Devil in the pale moonlight, one must be careful not to stick around for a hung-over breakfast too.
It is not within the purview of this article to analyse in any significant detail the specifics behind Mourinho’s spectacular bust-ups at Madrid, Chelsea and United beyond the odd example. A list of popular criticisms that seem to occur in the great man’s personality throughout his spell at all three clubs, however, is prudent in highlighting how flimsy the lines between Machiavellianism and bitter mayhem can be.
Here’s a maxim to live by: when you become a histrionic cartoon of your former self, you start etching your own epitaph. The Special One’s cloak of invincibility was formed from threads of innovative tactics and an extraordinary level of emotional intelligence in man management and mind games, all wrapped up in a generously warm jacket of charm. Those same threads also strangled him.
Consider Mr. Jonathan Wilson’s match report from 2014:
“Mourinho was at his Machiavellian worst on Saturday, hinting darkly at conspiracies against him. No matter that the one major decision Mike Dean obviously got wrong was his failure to send off Ramires for an elbow on Sebastian Larsson. In Mourinho’s telling, a referee’s plot was afoot because Chelsea had a decent penalty turned down in the first half and because Sunderland got a late penalty for a slightly odd challenge from Cesar Azpilicueta, in which his trailing leg caught Jozy Altidore’s standing leg.”
When Mourinho’s Chelsea were mowed down by a rampant Leicester a year later, he complained, “my work has been betrayed.”
And, perhaps most infamously, in an effort to counter Madrid’s infamous player power, Mourinho took aim at Mr. Iker Casillas in the 2012/13 season. The Spanish goaltender’s journalist-girlfriend and his exchanging texts with Barcelona players together formed the red cloth. Mourinho was the bull. It didn’t work; the fans were divided but the dressing room was decidedly not: Mourinho left at the close of the season’s play.
And the less said about this Pogba-Mourinho incident, the better.
The sniffing and snuffing out of conspiracies is vital to the ruler who doesn’t want to succumb to fatality early. But Mourinho went too far: sniffing and snuffing out conspiracies only works if there are conspiracies to sniff and snuff.
In The Prince, Machiavelli is plainly clear that the type of leader his treatise is for is the leader who has achieved power rather than been handed it. A Mourinho, rather than a Guardiola, then.
Machiavelli’s ideal leader possesses, in abundance, virtú — the spirit and ability of the leader to attain greatness. Paramount to this is the ability to continually act swiftly and decisively. As the Italian writes of Ferdinand of Aragon, “He was always planning and doing great things, keeping his people in a state of suspense and admiration, concentrated as they were on the outcome of his various campaigns.” People left stunned and stupefied will have no choice but to revel in the shadow of the ruler, let alone act conspiratorially. As Machiavelli fawns further, “[Ferdinand] never gave the most powerful men…any slack time…when they could plot against him.”
The cycle of virtú both requires and creates extreme situations to function: chaos. Creating and benefitting from chaos is perhaps the most definitive sentence in describing Mourinho’s methodology. It works. Ferdinand did all right. Look him up.
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While the classic Barcelona side of 2008-12 made you want to lean back in your cushioned armchair with a nice drop of Tignanello and listen to Mr. Bill Evans’ Peace Piece, Mourinho’s Madrid made you want to get slothered by a hundred beers in the middle of a mosh pit at an Oasis gig.
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It worked for Mourinho, too. But amid all the whiny punditry of modern players being too fragile for the kind of tough love he seems to revel in (re: Mr. Graeme Souness), Mourinho seems to have forgotten that most basic of Machiavellian tenets: a ruler is nothing without his army. As The Prince states quite straightforwardly when it attempts to ascertain the reasons behind the King of Naples and the Duke of Milan’s losses: “[They] all had poor armies.”
Publicly criticising his own players (Messrs. Luke Shaw, Pedro Leon, etc.) is certain to create chaos. But 2020 is not 2004. Hanging Messrs. Joe Cole and Frank Lampard out to dry prompted them to respond with stellar performances — consummate chaos. The consummate chaos of 2004, though, is too much chaos in 2020, evidenced by the way Mourinho’s recent tenures have ended.
Which leads onto the next critique of the Mourinho brand. Perhaps the most scathing and popular, yet truest of them all. He can’t adapt. He cannot adapt. Modern football, the game that demands every banal match-up be a glitzy, marquee event where teams press, pass, press, pass and somehow contrive to score five apiece, has left him and his tactics behind.
The string of high profile players he ostracised at Chelsea — De Bruyne, Salah, Mata — make a case for this. His playing style post that 2011/12 Madrid side changed dramatically (“parking the bus” only entered the popular lexicon in 2014). While the classic Barcelona side of 2008-12 made you want to lean back in your cushioned armchair with a nice drop of Tignanello and listen to Mr. Bill Evans’ Peace Piece, Mourinho’s Madrid made you want to get slothered by a hundred beers in the middle of a mosh pit at an Oasis gig. Perhaps Mourinho didn’t trust his players in the last season of his second Chelsea stint. Perhaps Mourinho never trusted anyone at United.
Are we to blame the ruler for not moulding his circumstance and army, or are we to blame the circumstance and the army for not aiding the ruler?
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Mr. José Mourinho took a Spurs side languishing in 14th on his first day in charge to the European spot of 6th at the end of the season. If the critique is that the gap between 14th and 6th was not a Herculean task, then dealing with players falling down clutching their hamstrings quicker than Neymar in full World Cup pomp certainly was.
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Machiavelli never returned to political life. Indeed, The Prince was written out of pure desperation; it provided him the only chance at entering “the ancient courts of the rulers who have long since died,” as he writes in a letter to Mr. Francesco Vettori. A line or two later, Machiavelli states with unflinching honesty: “Four hours go by without my feeling any anxiety. I forget every worry. I am no longer afraid of poverty or frightened of death.” In between considerable bouts of womanising and countryside jaunts, Machiavelli turned his attention to plays and found a modicum of success, but couldn’t reemerge from political anonymity. He died in 1527.
When Mourinho was sacked, no one thought he would dissolve into the footballing abyss, and wisely so. Regardless of the defeat to Mr. Carlo Ancelotti’s Everton, the initial signs of Mourinho’s reign at Spurs would show that to be wise. The tactics might be different and the mind games might be different, but the underlying message remains the same. There are defences and there are defences. Mourinho seems to have chosen his defence. Alli is Lampard; Kane is Drogba. He says to them in his distinctive voice, a mix between the gruff of a raspy, cigarette-puffing virtuoso and the laugh of a childlike, starry-eyed teenager: “I’ll set up the fireworks. You go be the fireworks.”
Mr. José Mourinho took a Spurs side languishing in 14th on his first day in charge to the European spot of 6th at the end of the season. If the critique is that the gap between 14th and 6th was not a Herculean task, then dealing with players falling down clutching their hamstrings quicker than Neymar in full World Cup pomp certainly was. So was the prospect of the dissatisfaction of perennially underachieving players, some of whom jumped ship mid-season.
The return of Messrs. Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Steven Bergwijn and Dele Alli ensured a post-lockdown run that erased memories of their horrendous Christmas run. Despite perhaps hamming it up with the press conference excuses, Mourinho and Spurs moved forward. As Machiavelli writes succinctly: “[Fortune] varies but men go on regardless.”
The key to many a successful manager is to form a team in his or her own image. It’s why Atléti imbibe Cholismo, Leeds Bielsaball. The Portuguese’s sides do the same.
Machiavelli writes that, “If you conquer a city accustomed to self-government and opt not to destroy it you can expect it to destroy you.” And so to Amazon Prime’s stellar documentary, which provides us with Mourinho’s endlessly quotable quote: “You are nice guys. But for 90 minutes, for 90 minutes, you cannot be nice. For 90 minutes, we have to be a bunch of c***s. Intelligent c***s, not stupid c***s.”
Spurs choke. Spurs are good but not good enough. Spurs can, ultimately, be rolled over (remember that Sir Alex quip prior to that 5-3 comeback? “Lads, it’s Tottenham”). In cultivating a distinct shift towards a meaner Tottenham, Mourinho is setting about creating the aura of his first Chelsea side. Gritty, tenacious, skillful and, above all, winners.
A full transfer window and subsequent season will give us a fuller picture of how he wants his team to play, but there is a concerted effort on Mourinho’s part to completely decimate the nice guys, tactics et al.
Aside from his heavy emphasis on youth development, Mourinho’s predecessor Mr. Mauricio Pochettino most commonly set up his Spurs teams in a 4-2-3-1, with players pressing high, worshipping ball retention, and then playing quick, direct passes not dissimilar to Liverpool circa 2017, but with less of a reliance on marauding full-backs. In a marked difference from City’s press and retention, it seemed that the less the number of passes in a Spurs build-up there were, the better the chances of a goal.
But the Argentine manager instructed his players to be stingy in the number of passes and still build from the back. This perhaps was his undoing, with the vital link in midfield between defence and attack that is able to beat the opposition press a glaring absence in the final months of his reign. While this led to a stark increase in the goals conceded column, the inability to move the ball forwards to the usually clinical forward line meant the end which Spurs attacked more often than not was desolate, barren and lifeless, like the sands of Aqaba before Lawrence’s charge.
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Pochettino wanted solid build-up from defence raunchily tangoing with a swaggering direct attack. Mourinho’s diamond up top demands a far more cautious directness, more akin to a two-footed beginner’s jive.
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Cue Mourinho. In an effort to counter this, the Portuguese has set up Spurs to play in a staggered 4-2-3-1, with the right back pushing higher than the left back. To counter Mr. Serge Aurier’s striking lack of defensive…anything, really, Mourinho has injected the physical and mental presence of Mr. Matt Doherty, bought from Wolves for a bargain price believed to be £15 million. That the manager, in the Amazon documentary brands Doherty “aggressive” shows the astuteness of the signing. Spurs need a right back to attack and defend in equal measure. Spurs now have one (announced in what is surely the most bants transfer announcement video this side of Mr. Alexis Sanchez’ twinkle-fingered piano concerto). Left back, while a priority in the long term given Mr. Jan Vertonghen’s departure and Mourinho and Mr. Danny Rose’s mutual dissatisfaction, looks set to be an area where Mr. Daniel Levy will choose to pinch his purse strings in the post-new stadium years. The rising Mr. Japhet Tanganga and the ever-present Mr. Ben Davies will do nicely for now, thank you very much.
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Regardless of the usual suspects who occupy midfield, the midfield generally plays with the left winger starting wide but drifting progressively in, while the right winger is tucked into the half-space outright, both forming an awkward diamond up top with the central attacking midfielder and the striker. Because of this, and because of the more conservative left back, Spurs’ main width in attack comes from the efforts of the right back. Again, Spurs are without the luxury of sacrificing defence of the right flank but place a heavy emphasis on build-up from there. Hence, Doherty.
Pochettino wanted solid build-up from defence raunchily tangoing with a swaggering direct attack. Mourinho’s diamond up top demands a far more cautious directness, more akin to a two-footed beginner’s jive. The lack of trust in midfield that plagued Pochettino’s final months and Mourinho’s initial ones should be solved by the signing of Mr. Pierre-Emile Højbjerg from Southampton.
The Danish midfielder can transition the ball from defence to attack quick enough to beat the more aggressive press. He is also a genuine screening midfielder, which is all the more important given Mr. Eric Dier’s desire to play deeper as centre back and Mr. Victor Wanyama’s departure after a steep drop-off following his stellar 2016/17 campaign. And even though Mr. Giovanni Lo Celso can play well anywhere across the midfield, playing the Argentine as a central defensive midfielder would mean sacrificing his abundant creativity. Parking the bus? Parking a fleet of Hummers, more like.
Mr. Harry Kane, though, cannot be the sole breadwinner in the striker department, and this is something Mourinho will be acutely aware of. Spurs are being touted to dip into Southampton’s coffers for Mr. Danny Ings, whose breakout season at 28 this year means he has enough time left to be a sturdy, reliable backup option for Kane. One senses, though, that whatever transpires, 2020/21 will see a very different Tottenham Hotspur.
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As the Orson Welles quip goes, “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
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It seems that Mourinho circa 2004 is back. Wiser, stronger and less resistant to change. It’s impossibly hard not to learn from high-profile bust-ups in the simultaneously biggest and smallest fishbowls of all in the Santiago Bernabéu, Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge.
In this post-football world of football, only the continued theatricality of those who resist the money-worshipping nothingness of football warrants religious following.
Mr. José Mourinho loves theatricality. He loves chaos. So do the fans. And why not? Chaos creates passion. Chaos creates conflict. Chaos creates humanity. And it’s far more interesting than utopia. Mourinho is Machiavelli again and bloody hell, football’s a lot more fun, isn’t it?
As the Orson Welles quip goes, “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”