It may be unpalatable for some, but José Mourinho has a very narrow definition of great football.
Great football = winning.
While there`s no knowing if the guvnor has ever read former US tennis star Brad Gilbert`s 1993 classic Winning Ugly, there`s no doubt that if he did he`d have found it tame stuff.
Ugly? Mourinho doesn`t care if the three points his team just clinched make the Elephant Man look like George Clooney.
The boss believes that people who value ‘attractive` football over results are either covering up for lack of success or from Mars.
Some people draw a straight line from Mourinho to Helenio Herrera, post-war Argentine football mastermind and creator of catenaccio. They may have it partly right: any philosophy promoting the idea that your opponents can`t win if they don’t score would get a thumbs-up from the guvnor.
Mourinho`s approach is perhaps closer to former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly. The legendary Scot`s biographer Stephen Kelly characterised him as “the ultimate obsessive”. José Mourinho will at the very least challenge that contention.
Even Shankly`s most celebrated quote – “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death? I can assure you it is much, much more important than that” – wouldn`t sound out of place coming from the guvnor.
Just like the master boxer who nullifies a physically stronger opponent`s advantages with technical brilliance, a contest involving a Mourinho team may sometimes be more disjointed than entertaining – though never for true fans or connoisseurs.
To those who moan at half time that the team is winning despite playing badly, Mourinho would offer one of those eloquent frown-scowls as if questioning their sanity.
Yesterday`s Capital Cup first half was a case in point, classic Mourinho genius. Two things seemed to occupy the master`s mind: Harry Kane, and the fact that Spurs had played a tough match against Fiorentina Thursday night.
To the surprise of all (if we could all do it we might be managing England`s best team) Mourinho played both Gary Cahill and Kurt Zouma, Cahill in his customary centre back role and the brilliant 20-year-old Frenchman in midfield.
Though it was a midfield that actually served as a second line of defence for most of the half, inviting Tottenham in to the last third where the North London side`s attacks would invariably founder on an unbreakable reef of blue.
Harry Kane in particular was frustrated with the lack of space around the edge of the area to make those scything runs he so loves to make either with the ball at his feet or in anticipation of its arrival; and on set pieces he must have found it claustrophobic in Terry`s pocket.
There was only one hiccup by Chelsea during the first 45 when Cesc Fabregas curtailed Kane`s sole threatening gallop with a lunge from behind at the edge of the blues` box. Eriksen boomed the resulting free kick off the crossbar for what turned out to be Spurs` closest effort of the entire game.
Mourinho was also comfortable with Tottenham`s sorties down both wings. Everything that came across was met by Terry (superb), Cahill, Ivanovic, Azpilicueta (MOTM finalist) or a back-tracking Zouma and Ramires like a windshield meets a bug.
Meanwhile, Chelsea kept Tottenham honest with sporadic attacks of greater urgency and directness than we`ve seen of late. Hazard, Willian and a combative Diego Costa combined to give the Spurs defence all they could handle.
The Brazilian-born Spaniard showed a far better turn of foot yesterday than he ever has since returning from his FA-enforced vacation: you couldn`t fully explain the artistry of the first touch that bamboozled Walker and put Costa in for Chelsea`s second without clearance from the Magic Circle.
Diego worries Chelsea fans with his unruliness but his is a consummately controlled fury designed to frustrate and needle opponents while teetering just this side of a referee`s patience.
Chelsea`s ceding of the midfield gave Tottenham plenty of Wembley`s famously energy-sapping turf to run themselves ragged on with legs still fresh (or, rather, not) from their Fiorentina fiasco little more than 48 hours earlier. When they arrived in the last third of the field they by turn lacked either the guile or the stamina to deal with what was essentially an eight-man defence.
Right on 45 mins Terry scored as he so often seems to do when it matters most. Willian`s free kick skimmed Rose`s head and pinballed out from the Spurs six-yard box and there was the skipper centre stage to force it home through a tangle of bodies. The untidy concession was a perfect illustration of the fatigue that Mourinho`s tactics had brought about in the Spurs ranks.
If the guvnor had worked it right, Tottenham`s waning energy would allow for a big start to the second half and then leave them there for the taking.
Not for the first or last time in the Special One`s career, everything played out exactly as planned.
So relaxed was the Portuguese maestro well before full time that we were even treated to some puckish camera spritzing.
In televised post-match comments, Mourinho`s most revealing words concerned his choice of man of the match. Or ‘men`. Referring to Courtois, Luis and Christensen on the bench, he said:
“I feel really sorry for the other ones who didn`t play, so for me they are the man of the match because this is a team.”
Moments of brilliance do not define a game for the guvnor, neither do the brilliant individuals who supply them.
Superb fitness, skill and iron adherence to shape are the givens for any player wanting to make it under Mourinho.
Yes, José Mourinho genuinely loves his players – yet at the same time he can be ruthless when their time in service of the team is over.
He reserves his true passion for the collective, for something that – when it gels – is much bigger than the sum of its parts.
This ideal collective`s highest level of output is winning.
It might not always be pretty but, like yesterday at Wembley, it will always and forever be adored by the Chelsea faithful.
By Stan Wenners
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