Ole, Jose!
At Benfica Mourinho will be speed-running the greatest hits, and racing through Real, Chelsea and Porto to the inevitable crash-out. Genuinely can't wait.
Ah, isn’t it great to see Mourinho back in Portugal? Will the football at Benfica be brilliant? Probably not. Will he win anything? Doubtful. Are you watching ? Of course you are.
Late Mourinho is an old master whose sight is going, whose fingers are curled with arthritis but who can still rely on his years of accumulated skill to rattle out the same old stuff. He has perfected his style. Through repetition he’s pared it back to the basics. He knows what makes him unique, and he knows what his audience wants. He’s happy to be a caricature, because he knows that success never lasts, and that fame is just PR…
For Mourinho, the show is the irony, the press conferences, the theatrical combustibility, the short blaze of success based on intense energy, followed by the inevitable crash-out where he starts throwing his arms about and blaming refs, players, fans, owners, VAR, UEFA, anybody, everybody. You, me, God, the Devil. And then the ref again, who is a cheat and whose mother is a slut. And everyone is watching on, smiling, not really taking it seriously. It’s a cartoon. A Punch and Judy show. We all know the story, we’re just here for the comedy and the violence.
The cycle may even speed up now. The old man has less time to lose now, he knows himself and where this ends. How fast is he going to speed-run the process this time? Our brains are all conditioned by TikTok now, attention spans are short. Quick, Jose, quick! Cut out the boring bits, go straight for the highlights reel!
The glory days are gone, but linger on in memory. And that’s all a big part of it. Games against Chelsea, Real Madrid and Porto loom in the first few weeks. Ah, the stories, the echoes, the ghosts. The column inches! At this point, it’s all a bit of fun. Enjoy it while it lasts. Jose will, chuckling onwards towards retirement.