Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address lasted two minutes. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech lasted 17 minutes. John F Kennedy’s Inauguration Speech lasted 14 minutes. Winston Churchill’s ‘Fight on the Beaches’ speech lasted 34 minutes.
Acclaimed as football’s answer to all of them, Jose Mourinho’s self-serving, self-aggrandising, self-regarding, self-pitying, melodramatic, hard-luck claptrap that passed for his attempt at oratory on Friday afternoon lasted 12 minutes. His only theme was Jose Mourinho. He used his moment on the stage to deliver a homage to himself.
Ask not what Mourinho can do for Manchester United but what Manchester United can do for him. His was a dystopian vision of a great football club as a vehicle for a narcissist. His was a speech that denigrated United so that he could vindicate himself. Some managers subjugate themselves to their clubs. Mourinho asks that the club subjugates itself to him.
Jose Mourinho launched an impassioned defence of his Manchester United record on Friday
He spoke for 12 minutes after being asked whether he understood the frustrations of the fans
United were dumped out of the Champions League on Wednesday by Spanish side Sevilla
So it was 12 minutes of me, me, me. Twelve minutes of excuses for that lame, laboured, dour apology of a performance against Sevilla last Wednesday. Twelve minutes of excuses about why he has been blown away by Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City this season.
A great speech? Please. Mark Antony’s funeral oration in Julius Caesar was a great speech. ‘Friends, Glazers, countrymen, lend me your cash,’ does not have quite the same ring to it.
Twelve minutes that vindicated the worst fears of those within the United hierarchy and fan base who had not wanted Mourinho in the first place. Twelve minutes that put the Kong-sized ego of the man in the spotlight and exposed his bitterness and his delusions in all their towering majesty.
Twelve minutes in which he droned on and on about the heritage of England’s most famous club and reduced it, conveniently and shamelessly, to six years in the desert following its loss to Barcelona in the 2011 final. In his self-obsession, he could not see the disrespect to the club in that.
Mourinho talked about United as though they were minnows. He talked as if the fans of the club that has a claim to call itself the biggest in the world had no right to think that the £300million he has spent over the last two years might earn it a place in the conversation when the Champions League reaches its latter stages.
He talked, too, as if this has always been United’s fate. That is what really grates. It suits his narrative to portray United as a plucky little club that is lucky to have him and which only has a chance of rising above its natural place amid the poor men of Europe if he works his magic. It would be funny if it were not so pathetic.
United, lest we forget, have reached a Champions League final more recently than him. So when he talked about Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus as being the teams that always reach the quarter-finals, it is worth remembering that, from 1997 to 2011, United made the quarters or better 12 times in 15 seasons. They won it twice. They made the final twice more.
United’s heritage is built on European success. United were European pioneers. Their triumph at Wembley in 1968, 10 years after the Munich air disaster, with Sir Matt Busby back at the helm, is probably the greatest, most emotional story in the history of English football. That is United’s European heritage.
United have proud European history, having won the Champions League three times
Mourinho’s speech on Friday was an attempt to burnish a reputation that has lost its lustre
Then there was the Treble of 1999 and that impossibly dramatic victory in the Champions League final in Barcelona to cap the greatest season any English football club has ever had. There was another triumph in 2008 in the all-English final with Chelsea in Moscow. Mourinho’s idea that United are European impostors is shameful artifice.
So forget the 12 minutes as some feat of oratory. As speeches go it was a cross between Jack Nicholson urging Wendy to stop swinging the bat in The Shining and Steve Coogan listing the years no one died in The Pool Supervisor. It was an attempt to burnish a reputation that has lost its lustre.
It was also the moment when Mourinho turned into someone fans poke fun at. His achievements have made him immune to that before. Love him or hate him, his record has always spoken the loudest. But this was downright funny. If it was reminiscent of any speech at all, it was the ‘Fact’ rant of Rafa Benitez, so widely mocked by United fans.
Mourinho was a great manager once and he may well be again but, right now, Guardiola in particular is making him look like a dinosaur, someone struggling to have any say in the present. Guardiola’s success and the joy it is bringing to those who love creative, passing football, is eating Mourinho up.
In his self-absorption, what Mourinho seemed unable to grasp in his 12-minute rant was that he has not been brought to Manchester to continue the recent record of mediocrity in Europe, a subject upon which he has become such a diligent student. The Glazer Family have given him nearly £300m to change that record, not to perpetuate it.
Mourinho is being made to look like a dinosaur by Pep Guardiola at Manchester City
Of all Mourinho’s signings, only Nemanja Matic has been an unqualified success
Instead, what he delivered was a team who lost meekly and miserably in the second round to a Sevilla side fifth in La Liga. His recruitment has been uneven at best. Of Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Victor Lindelof, Eric Bailly, Nemanja Matic and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, only Matic has been an unqualified success. When it comes to rebuilding United’s defence, he must start again.
In the darkest hour after the Sevilla defeat, Mourinho claimed such defeats were not ‘anything new’ for the club. It allowed him to drop in the fact that he, himself, the great Mourinho, had humbled United at their home, both with Porto and Real Madrid.
In some ways, nothing has changed. Mourinho’s still humbling United. It is just that, this time, he is doing it from the inside.
I saw my first Gold Cup at Cheltenham on Friday.
The duel between Native River and Might Bite was a brilliant piece of drama, made more special by the natural amphitheatre in which it takes place.
Native River emerged victorious at the Gold Cup at Cheltenham on Friday
When nature and sport combine, it makes for something particularly memorable, so in no particular order, here are my top five destinations for sport: the Olympic regatta on Lagoa at Rio 2016, the sailing in Sydney harbour during the 2000 Olympics, Amen Corner at Augusta, Newlands cricket ground in Cape Town and Cheltenham racecourse.
When Danny Welbeck dives, Arsenal fansdemand you talk about Dele Alli’s diving. When Dele Alli dives, Spurs fans demand you talk about Jamie Vardy’s diving.
It would be nice if, just once, supporters could take a step back and say that whoever is doing the diving is selling himself and his club short. But that’s a fantasy that will never become reality.
Danny Welbeck came under criticism after appearing to win a penalty for Arsenal by diving
Why should English footballers be asked to boycott the World Cup in Russia when British Airways still fly to Moscow and British exports to Russia are worth billions of pounds?
The truth is that most politicians care little for sport except when they can use it as a weapon to further their own agendas.