José Mourinho is notorious for his rough handling of players.
Like the managers of old, Mourinho is one who insists upon having absolute authority at a club. When he has it, he makes sure that all his players know who’s boss. His attitude and treatment of his players is often harsh, bordering on bullying – and it has broken many men.
But there have been some players who have faced down against Mourinho and actually come out alive, thrived even. We’ve rounded up a list of the six that have managed to do this, the half-dozen that have gone to war with José Mourinho and actually lived to talk about it.
John Terry
Remember José Mourinho’s first spell at Chelsea? When he was still an absurd combination of good looks, confidence and competence? When he was the world’s best coach who won the Premier League back to back? Well remember how it all came crashing down because he fell out with, then picked a fight with John Terry?
Mourinho built Terry into this larger-than-life figure, a mythic titan of a captain (he was an excellent defender but both Ricardo Carvalho and William Gallas were superior) and so when he began 2007/08 in subpar form even after surgery, Mourinho wanted to know why.
Mourinho visited the club medical department, trying to see what was wrong with Terry. The Englishman found out and didn’t take too kindly to this. A rift developed between the two men, but instead of Terry being cast out and sold, as had happened to William Gallas a year earlier, it was Mourinho who got the boot from the Bridge. The pair have since made up, but what a victory for Terry!
Mario Balotelli
Mario Balotelli and José Mourinho never really got on at Inter. Ironically, though, it wasn’t because Mourinho wouldn’t play a then-teenage Balotelli as part of his ongoing feud with young players in general, it was because Balotelli’s laid-back attitude didn’t jive with Mourinho’s ultra-serious, ultra-macho super professional sensibilities.
Mourinho famously called Balotelli “unmanageable” but he never really censured the striker, and Balotelli played 40 games for Inter in 2009/10, scoring 11 times. Being almost everything Mourinho despises in a player and yet still playing? And now having Mourinho only recall your time together with love and fondness? That’s some serious sauce.
Sergio Ramos
When Mourinho joined Real Madrid, Sergio Ramos was a right-back. He thrived in this role, but Mourinho eventually moved Ramos to centre-back where the athletic Spaniard’s skill-set made him a natural fit. He began to thrive, but his personality always clashed with Mourinho’s – they were probably too similar to really get along; obsessively macho men.
Yet Mourinho could never directly do anything to Ramos. Sure, he took out Ramos’ two best friends in the squad, sidelining club captain Iker Casillas and bullying Mesut Ozil more than usual, but he never came for Ramos. The Spaniard even once wore Ozil’s shirt under his own in defiance of Mourinho who had subbed the German at half-time.
In the end, Mourinho could never build up the cache needed to take Sergio Ramos on. He ended up leaving the Bernabeu and in the very next season Ramos went supernova, winning the Champions League (something the Portuguese could never do at Madrid) as well as scoring in the final. He’s since won three more European Cups and one La Liga as club captain and taken all manner of oblique pot-shots at Mourinho, who has managed just one Premier League, an EFL Cup, a Europa League and said nothing since.
Eden Hazard
Eden Hazard was Chelsea’s best player as the Blues romped to a title win in José Mourinho’s second spell in charge. He was a sensational attacking talent who Mourinho clearly appreciated, but also tried to drive to improvement. Mourinho’s incessant pushing of Hazard became a problem in 2015/16, when Hazard returned from holiday (in his own words) in poor shape.
This vexed Mourinho, but now Hazard had won a title he was in no mood to stand for Mourinho’s nonsense. When the Eva Carneiro incident flared up, Hazard very visibly downed tools. Playing miles below his level, essentially dragging Chelsea down and ensuring Mourinho got sacked. He perked up magnificently next season under Antonio Conte and won another league title. He has consistently hammered Mourinho’s Manchester United since and is now so superior he can even talk about wanting to play for Mourinho again. The cheek!
Nemanja Matic
When a player is brought off the bench, they stay on the field for the rest of the game unless they get injured. That’s an unspoken rule of football. Even if a sub is terrible, they stay on. Well, José Mourinho once broke that rule, subbing Nemanja Matic on with 15 minutes left in the game having just brought him on at half-time.
The Portuguese insisted he wasn’t out to humiliate Matic, but did say that some of his players were “in a difficult moment, Matic is one of them,” which is a pretty humiliating thing to say to a dude after you just subbed him off after less than half an hour of play off the bench.
Mourinho dropped Matic and clearly never trusted him again until he got sacked, but Matic never once turned on his boss. He stood tall and “took his lumps” without complaint. Mourinho couldn’t break him. In fact it was Mourinho who blinked first, signing Matic for Manchester United and making him one of the centre-piece midfielders of the side.
Luke Shaw
Luke Shaw should have been a superstar for José Mourinho. He may be now, but for the longest time it didn’t look like the left-back, whose primary skills were being strong and running fast, was going to make it at Mourinho’s Manchester United.
Injuries hampered his progress, without doubt, but the Portuguese showed an almost callous lack of patience with Shaw. Public criticisms were common and frequent, once he even said that he had to guide Shaw through the game, intimating the Englishman was too stupid to know what to do. Countless oblique inferences of Shaw not being tough enough to play through pain were made. It was so toxic.
But Shaw took all of Mourinho’s bile and just kept on coming. He got fit, and proved in the 2018/19 pre-season that he could be trusted. In an awful start to the regular season, Shaw was a shining light for The Red Devils. He played magnificently from the start, earned a recall to the England side and established himself as Manchester United’s starting and future left-back to such a clear extent that the club have handed him a massive new five year deal, securing his future at Old Trafford for long after Mourinho implodes and leaves.
The post Six players who took on Jose Mourinho and lived to tell the tale appeared first on Squawka News.
From Squawka NewsSquawka News https://ift.tt/2NP4Xsd
No comments:
Post a Comment