Foue Lessons from Mourinho and Chelsea's slump

This is not supposed to be a guide to failing Managers like Mourinho. It is not even a piece of advice; it’s merely some rant by me, a Barcelona fan, who derives pleasure from seeing Chelsea and Mourinho play badly. For the Chelsea fans who have the privilege (or misfortune) of reading reading this piece; this is my opinion, not Jobberman’s.

With that said, let’s get down to it, shall we?



Career Lesson One

Story:
Chelsea FC have only won ONE Champions league trophy and I remember vividly that after that final, the only set of football fans who ‘had the right’ to speak at viewing centres were Chelsea fans. The rest of us dared not, even though at the time fans of FC Barcelona, Manchester United, FC Bayern, R.Madrid, Juventus and a few others had won (or celebrated winning) that same trophy multiple times. But Chelsea got it once and all hell was let loose; they just wouldn’t let us rest anymore.

Again, Mourinho is famous for repeatedly insisting that Arsene Wenger is a ‘specialist in failure’. The guy sees every pre and post match press conference as an opportunity to rant, complain and insult the person of Arsene; that’s more like his favorite pastime. Well, I bring good news; the dude called Mourinho now wins just one match in every month. Now, who’s the specialist in failure? I can’t laugh abeg.

Lesson:
Enjoy your success, but don’t rub it in the faces of other people.



Career Lesson Two

Story:
Chelsea sacked the only coach to have ever gotten them the Champions league trophy (what Mourinho would never be able to do for them) just a season after. The guy was dismissed like he never did anything good for them — the same idiotic way some bosses dismiss their secretaries/typists after a smalltypo.

Fast-forward to 2015, Mourinho in his characteristic autocratic manner‘disciplined and dismissed’ the pretty, affable and reliable team physio, Eva Carneiro over some flimsy and almost irrelevant on-field situation. By the way, the Physio was clearly doing her job by attending to the injured Chelsea player– I think it was Hazard…or err Fabregas; can’t really remember, I hardly watch Chelsea matches — they bore me.

Need I remind everyone that that was the beginning of the slump for Chelsea and Mourinho. Apparently, the lady wasn’t just a Physio, she was very integral to the team, she had some influence and even though her impact might not have been very visible on the surface, they only had to let her go to realize their folly. There are people like that in every team. I like to believe that that event affected the team morale and see where they are on the table today — too low for me to even see.

Lesson:
Don’t Sack Your Eva Carneiro.



Career Lesson Three

Story:
Mourinho has a terrible attitude: he blames everyone but himself when things go awry. Many examples come to mind, but one is fresh. When Chelsea lost to Southampton earlier this season in the premiership, Mourinho cleverly brought in Matic, a defensive midfielder, when he needed to score. Now Mourinho perhaps had seen that that match was a lost cause and wanted to take the media attention away from him. Guess what the ‘special one’ did: bababrought in Matic, waited for Chelsea to concede an inevitable goal and almost immediately removed Matic again.

Now the uninitiated in the mind-games of Mourinho would not easily understand that move, but I will enlighten you. By removing Matic after Chelsea conceded that goal, Mourinho cleverly diverted media attention away from himself, and summarily made the Matic the scape-goat by simply making it appear like Matic was responsible for that goal and he had to be removed. In the end, most people blamed Matic, not Mourinho for the loss.

Lesson:
Prepare for downtime. Things will not always go right and when they eventually go wrong, don’t
push the blame to others, take responsibility and man up.



Career Lesson Four

Story:
Mourinho has a consciousness of self that is unrivaled. The man exhibits the highest form of self-love (or selfishness). When he first came to Chelsea after winning the Champions league with Porto, the guy ceremoniously announced to the English media that he was ‘the special one‘. He had a brilliant spell thereafter. Correct me if I’m wrong, I think he later announced himself as ‘the only one‘ (can’t remember if that was in England, Italy, or Spain).

Frankly, Mourinho is a great coach and winner. But the guy doesn’t just praise his teams as much as one would expect especially as his success is largely tied to the efforts of his players. Mourinho however takes more of the accolades for himself. Mourinho competes with his star players for glory and attention.

Lesson:
It’s okay to give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done, but it’s better when you do
more of same to your team. You might be special, but you equally need a great team to succeed.

Pheww…that’s all folks!