What Next for Jose Mourinho?

Well, I clearly picked the wrong big piece of football news to write about last week. At the very least, if I'd waited 24 hours I could have dissected why the European Super League collapsed (or rather, repeated everything that I heard on the football podcasts for the next few days).

Instead we're left with the actual big news, which is that Jose Mourinho got sacked by Spurs, in a continuation of the trends from his late-period career. Who couldn't have foreseen this when the team unveiled him less than two years ago? His time at Manchester United was still alarmingly fresh in mind, and there was no reason to expect anything different here.

It's interesting the extent to which he's become the Premier League's greatest villain, but then, among the elite coaches he's probably the one that shows the most personality. Ole Gunnar Solskjær is this genial presence that was previously a little creepy in his devotion to Alex Ferguson's legacy; Jürgen Klopp makes the odd reference to heavy metal music and "this means more", whatever that means; Pep Guardiola is the tactics-obsessed nerd; and both Mikel Arteta and Thomas Tuchel are probably too new to have carved a niche for themselves (though who really thinks they'll come out with the types of zingers that Mourinho used to?)

No, this bunch is too nerdy to really go for the good wars of words that Mourinho used to have with the likes of Arsène Wenger, Rafael Benitez and Alex Ferguson (though of those three only Ferguson is notable for his own mind games and zingers). Who, for example, can forget when Mourinho suggested that Benitez's wife should look to her husband's diet instead of criticizing Mourinho?

Though it must also be said that the Mourinho we saw at Spurs, Man United and even the second time at Chelsea is not that same man as years earlier. Back then, he was fun to hate, because his teams won stuff - but as time has gone by all he's done is turn his negative energies on his own players. He alienated Eden Hazard at Chelsea, Paul Pogba at United and Dele Alli at Spurs, among others. At least for those first two he actually won some trophies - but now when's that going to happen again?

I can't say I entirely miss him when he's gone, but I am curious to see what he ends up doing next. It feels like he's burned his bridges with the elite teams of England (and there aren't any openings anyway), and with Real Madrid, so it'd be interesting if he popped up in Italy again... though again, it's hard to see who might take him. Maybe Napoli? I think I would be disappointed if he ended up at Wolves (though that would be hilarious if Nuno Espirito Santo swapped with him and took over at Spurs), or any of the other also-rans that rarely get into Europe.

The other question is, who will replace him at Spurs? Or indeed will want to? I don't know if there's a legendary ex-player that they could hire, or a German tactical genius - or they could split the difference and get Jürgen Klinsmann. Though if he paired up with Joachim Löw again, they might be on to something...

European Super League or Mourinho's sacking: one problem at a time, please

Well, heck. That was a big day in the world of football, eh?

Not only did a bunch of the biggest and most successful clubs come out with their plans to form a breakaway, closed-shop competition, but one of those teams, Tottenham Hotspur, sacked their manager Jose Mourinho. Today I'll be talking about the European Super League idea, but only because I can only take on one earth-shattering topic per post. Still, it'll come up again at some point in this post, if fleetingly.

So the clubs involved are Spanish (Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid), Italian (AC Milan, Inter, Juventus) and English (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Spurs). For the most part, they're the most successful and storied clubs in their respective countries, and in the case of Real Madrid, the most successful club in European competition. Though this doesn't mean they're winning trophies all the time - Manchester United's last Premier League title was 2013, Arsenal's was 2004 and Spurs last won it in 1961. Neither Inter nor Milan have won Serie A in about 9 years, because of Juve's dominance, and Atletico Madrid last won La Liga in 2014.

They've won other stuff since then, but this is the first thing that's come up in a bunch of the commentary I've listened to or read today: Arsenal currently sit ninth in the Premier League, having struggled to land a 1-1 draw with local rivals Fulham, who are in 18th place and headed for relegation. Juve, meanwhile, lost 1-0 to Atalanta, one of the upstart clubs this European Super League idea is meant to exclude (fun fact: in a weekend rife with goals, Juventus were apparently the only team in Serie A not score a goal), and lie fourth.

The other thing that everyone mentions is how hard-hit these clubs have been by the coronavirus pandemic, being a billion dollars or so in the hole as a result of lost revenue from postponed matches, and from not admitting fans for over a year. The ESA aims to create a closed shop, or cartel, if you like, where participants will be guaranteed a certain amount of money each season, regardless of position or performance. They'd (presumably) have more control over TV rights deals, and would aim to leverage their worldwide fanbases to command more merchandising and ticket receipts.

I've been pretty much glued to the internet all day, and I've taken the unprecedented step of downloading both the Guardian Football Weekly and Totally Football podcasts, to get as much information as possible. The common reaction is revulsion at the money-grabbing air of this announcement, and at the "Americanization" of football. I don't disagree with either of these viewpoints, but I fear the good pundits of Britain are relying on emotional arguments that won't really register with the owners of the ESA clubs.

Reactions have talked about the meritocracy of football, and the theoretical ability of any club, no matter how humble, to rise up to the top tier and challenge in Europe. This is the dream I pursue every time I play FIFA on my PS3 or Switch, by guiding Southend United from the doldrums at the bottom of League 2 to the pinnacle of the Champions League. But in practical terms, the ability of Forest Green or Dulwich Hamlets or even Leicester to come from nowhere and win the Premier League does nothing for the coffers of Manchester City, or United.

(Though it should be noted that United's coffers are full enough, thanks to their sponsorship deals, such that actually winning the league feels incidental to the business of drumming up more business)

Another talking point that often comes up in discussions of the ESA is that one of those teams has to take home the wooden spoon - would Juventus, who has dominated nine seasons of Serie A but won exactly no Champions League titles, be content with that?

To which I point out that, with the money they'd be pulling down and the guarantee of continued participation in the ESA, they don't really give a crap. This is the point of a US-style league - the clubs control everything and the earnings are shared out in a more egalitarian manner than they are in the meritocratic European-style leagues.

The other big one is the reaction of the fans, and here again I fear that the pundits and critics of the ESA plan are missing a trick. For one thing, Jonathan Wilson implied on today's Football Weekly that NFL fans don't have as much connection to their teams as English fans do to their clubs. Except that people can and do swear lifelong allegiances to an NFL team, and on top of that the Green Bay Packers are actually owned by their fans - an ownership model that doesn't exist at the top level in England.

I also suspect they're wrong, or at least overly optimistic, about the fans' commitment in England. Soccernomics, by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski, argued that fans are much more casual than the popular perception holds - allegiances change over time, in line with performance on the field and other factors, so that for example die hard Chelsea fans are dwarfed by those who might have supported another club before Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea two decades ago. 

Kuper and Szymanski also suggest that leagues dominated by one or two teams, like Spain, actually see more attendance than supposedly egalitarian leagues, because fans of other teams turn up in greater numbers when Real or Barcelona come to town. This suggests that the ESA's clubs are (probably correctly) banking on the excitement of regular heavyweight matchups to draw eyeballs - after all the group stage of the Champions League draws almost no viewers, but the knockout stage (dominated by the big four leagues of Spain, England, Germany and to a lesser extent Italy) is what draws viewers.

My point here is that, while I would prefer for football to become more egalitarian rather than less, it feels like any proposed sanction against the ESA clubs will lack teeth. If they get expelled from UEFA competitions, then their own super league will keep them going nicely. If their players are banned from the World Cup and other international duties, then the clubs will be delighted, because their most important asset won't be exhausted and at risk of injury.

The only thing I can see that might give the ESA clubs pause is the supply of players. It'll probably be easy for them to snap up the most promising players from around Europe, but there might be ways for FIFA and UEFA to stop players from signing; and from coming back to "regular" football once they leave the ESA clubs.

Personally, I hate the idea, especially when it's clear that the whole point is to remove the romance of a Leicester City escaping relegation one season, winning the Premier League the next, and getting to the knockouts of the Champions League the season after. But it also seems clear that the clubs involved can probably do whatever they want, and even if they lose this round, not only will they claw back more concessions to entrench their power in the existing Champions League, but they'll also trot out the threat of a breakaway league again someday.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

In the years since I've started this blog, I've frequently written an in memoriam piece whenever a pop culture personality died, if they were relevant to me in some way. I talk about my experience of their work, and how it's changed as I've grown, or if there's some other theme that's relevant to them.

In the case of Prince Philip, it's a little different. Not only am I not a fan of the British royal family, but the Duke of Edinburgh himself is a figure that I had little thought for. To the extent that I knew anything about him, it was the line, oft-repeated by the comedy panel shows, that he was given to racist gaffes when speaking in public. I also encountered the storyline in season one of Netflix's the Crown, which implied he was unfaithful to Queen Elizabeth, but that's about it.

I don't have any relationship to Philip as a pop-culture figure, and my perception of him is roughly unchanged since I started paying attention to his existence in about 2002. So why am I writing about him? I suppose it's because it hit me that his death brings us closer to the day that Elizabeth herself passes away, and the undiscovered country that will be Britain after her death.

There was a time, back in elementary school, that I found the Windsors interesting. But otherwise, I've always sort of rolled my eyes at coverage of them in the press, especially here in the US. Particularly funny to me is the idea that the British royals are constantly up to some form of shenanigans - Americans think they're constantly partying and sleeping around but the House of Windsor is so media-savvy that they keep a tight lid on any whiff of scandal (Prince Harry dressing up as a Nazi in his early 20s aside).

That said, when you stop and think about it, Elizabeth has been on the throne since 1952, longer than my mother has been alive. She's been married to Philip since 1947, when my father wasn't even a year old. Her reign coincided with the rebuilding of Britain after the Second World War, the cultural reinvigoration of the 60s, the doldrums of the 70s, the Thatcher years, the end of the Cold War, the War on Terrorism, economic collapse (again), nationalism and Brexit. Or to put it another way, there are people who were born after Elizabeth and Philip married, and died of natural causes before he died on Friday. Her reign, and marriage, accounts for a very long slice of history, as these things go.

So I wonder what a post-Elizabeth Britain will look like. Bits and pieces have been coming off since the 1940s, and more are looking like they're about to come off now. Prince Charles doesn't really have the love of the British people that his mother, or first wife, command, though I've also heard some people say good things about his involvement in causes like the environment. There was a time when people talked about skipping over Charles to go straight to Prince William, but he seems less in the public eye (though I appreciate him as a fellow early-baldy).

I see the attraction of converting to a republic, but I also don't find the idea of the monarchy that offensive, since it's a cultural institution that helps tie together the British public and gives them a shared sense of community that's sorely missing here. Britain's politics may be as different now from when she took power as politics in America are from their place in 1952, but the vast majority of Britons alive today were born during her reign, so no matter who lives at Downing Street, that whole country has tuned in at Christmas to hear Elizabeth give the Queen's Speech. 

This continuity matters, even when you have divisions as deep as those between England and Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland, or between London and the rest of England, or between the north and south of England. Scottish talk of independence aside, there's a feeling of community and shared vision in Britain that is sorely lacking here - given that the US looks to be splitting asunder on Democratic/progressive versus Republican/reactionary lines at any moment.

So I read a certain amount of the coverage on Philip last Friday, since it's a reminder that Queen Elizabeth II, this presence that we and our parents have grown up with, is still a mortal person and who one day won't be there anymore. He may have been awful or great, or somewhere in between, but it's a reminder that eventually even the longest reigns come to an end.