IT BEGINS AGAIN
There’s only one aspect of football better than unveilings, and that’s press conferences – or pressers, as we in the trade get to call them. But even then, there are pressers and there are pressers; José Mourinho holds PRESSERS. As ever, there were bathloads of bathos, panfuls of pathos and enough hubris to destroy a continent, along with the usual all-knowing narcissism and oblivious nihilism. Mainly, this was communicated through the medium of expressive snide.
Mourinho kicked things off by voicing his desire to beat Lord Ferg’s Big Cup record. Pausing just long enough for viewers to contemplate a paltry two successes in 19 attempts, he revealed his true goal: the deeply coveted title of most games managed. Later in the piece, conversation turned to the fabled glass of wine, the deus ex machina of all phoney deference; The Fiver can only advise both men to check under the sediment. The next donee of Mourinho’s disdain was Mourinho; “obviously the club is more important than myself,” he said, with telling reflexive pronoun abuse. This, though, was but a pitstop away from Pep Guardiola and Louis van Gaal. “I was never very good playing with the words or hiding behind philosophies,” he admitted, while figuratively scrawling comedy phalluses on both their heads. Next in line were the press corps, upbraided for their curious urge to describe negative football immediately after watching negative football. “I can imagine one of these questions is around the corner,” he mused, before pointing out that only cup competitions are won without playing well, bodying an entire raft of colleagues in the process. “I want everything,” he verucasalted for emphasis.
Axes grinding and bile bubbling, he then responded to a question about his most recent failure by raising the hypothetical tale of “managers that the last time they won the title was 10 years ago”. Sensitive sorts perceived yet another needless swipe at Arsène Wenger, but The Fiver is able to clarify that since his last championship came 12 years ago, it could not possibly be so; Mourinho is nothing if not meticulous. What was most definitely so was the faux-comedic needling of “Mr Woodward”, the man who tried everything to swindle him out of a job – even faith in Van Gaal. Had United signed two players or three, Mourinho wondered, in reference to negotiations that would be over were they only being conducted by someone as astoundingly competent as he.
Naturally, the mere mention of TRANSFERS caused Sky to interrupt Mourinho so that viewers could enjoy Danny Higginbotham talking about Mourinho. “It looks like Mkhitaryan is going to be inevitable,” he sagely informed of a player also known to be very unique and currently available at the moment. Then it was back to Mourinho and the press, and their desire to criticise his record for developing youngsters. Naturally, he was prepared for this eventuality, proving his attacking inclination by once again starting on a man not there to defend himself. “Sometimes you promote players because you have no choice and when you are not paying for big targets,” he disparaged, before citing the No49 repeatedly. On the face of it, this was because he has given 49 debuts, but The Fiver can reveal his true intention: to further agitate Wenger, and also the $exgods of the nation, doomed to spend the remainder of the afternoon trying to list them all. “BUT … BUT … WHAT’S LENNY PIDGELEY DOING NOW!” they coo breathlessly to their lovers.
And, finally, there was some for Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney. “The job Ryan wanted is the job that the club decided to give me,” was Mourinho’s summation of the various machinations against Moyes and Van Gaal, and he then insisted that Rooney “is never a 6” – harsh on the new hairpiece, to say the least. The overriding impression was of a man who has learnt much and reflected plenty during his six-month sabbatical; as such, he returns more belligerently, babyishly bellicose than before. Lucky, lucky, everyone.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It is a European Championship not a family party … a stadium is not the most safe place for small kids” – having done such a stellar job with the prevention of pitch invaders and crowd trouble, tournament suit Martin Kallen sets his sights on the real poison blighting Euro 2016: children joining their parents in post-match celebrations.
FIVER LETTERS
“I would like to offer a cautionary note on Stephen Kirk’s excellent argument for moving the timing of the penalty shootout (Fiver letters passim). If we assume that this may improve England’s chances at major tournaments and we also make the more probable assumption that, at a future point in time, the universe will have finished expanding and will begin to contract causing time to run backwards (an event which I estimate will occur somewhere between England’s next early Big Tournament bath and the red half of Liverpool becoming champions of England again) then as things stand, the Three Lions would possibly benefit more from the status quo. We must be careful not to impact the exponentially increasing volume of unbridled joy we are storing up for the rewind: the ecstasy of un-missing penalties, the sheer relief of un-losing games and the blissfully naive anticipation of un-exiting tournaments that we will have to look forward to. That said, we probably have enough in the locker already to last until the beginning of time” – Martyn Davies.
“Belatedly, I smell a conspiracy. I suspect that the referendum was planned and set up by the FA two years ago. It knew after the 2014 World Cup that Mr Roy would fall flat on his face in the 2016 Euros. Getting those Westminster charlatans and the rest of the country all screwed up about the EU means that 95% of the country don’t even know that Mr ‘I don’t even know what I’m doing here’ Roy and the England ‘team’ are now sunning themselves on a beach somewhere courtesy of a bunch of Danish émigrés. I’m not happy with Iceland either. First there was the Cod War, then they sent up that volcanic ash to put out the sun, then they made their banks fail and voted not to pay compensation to British pension funds, then they beat us, albeit deservedly, at our ‘national game’. Unforgivably and worst of all, they made me wish that Carlton Palmer was still playing for England” – Leigh Kilgarriff.
“Despite hating Portugal as Latin American class simulators, I hope that all Remain voters cheer on Portugal to beat Brexit-voting Wales. Why should they have any joy at all after helping to inflict such damage on the rest of the country?” – Owen Rossan.
• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Martyn Davies.
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RECOMMENDED VIEWING
Iceland get a heroes’ welcome back in Reykjavik. Which club is going to shamelessly riff on that clapping business (which Iceland shamelessly riffed on from elsewhere) next season? Palace. It’s going to be Palace, isn’t it?
BITS AND BOBS
Brexit has got Arsène Wenger channelling Private First Class William L Hudson. “If the league becomes less attractive, the broadcasters will offer less money for the rights, club revenues will decrease and the Premier League will suffer the consequences,” he sighed. “There lies the problem. We thought that one day the best players from Real and Barça would say: ‘I also want to go to England because everyone is over there.’ All of that is now uncertain and Brexit is a spanner in the works. It will have consequences, not in the very short term, but in the long term.”
Swansea aren’t ones to look a gift horse in the mouth and have decided to sign Leroy Fer from QPR on a permanent deal. “I’m very happy, from the first minute I felt at home,” he cheered.
We now live in a world where James Tomkins is a £10m player, Crystal Palace hurling their telly-cash the way of West Ham.
Nani has chosen Valencia over Stoke.
Harry Kane is set to scrawl Harry Kane all over a Spurs contract that will keep him in top, top coin there for another five years.
Milan head honcho Silvio Berlusconi has confirmed that he will sell the shambling seven-times Big Cup winners to some loaded Chinese investors and trouser around €400m in the process.
Fabricio Coloccini has penned a 966-word letter to his “life friends” at Newcastle United to explain his reasons for doing one to San Lorenzo. “I am 34 years old now,” sums it up nicely.
Is Thomas Müller afraid of France in the Euro 2016 semi-finals? Erm, no. “Fear never comes into it,” he roared.
And Fifa has revealed the most affordable tickets for foreigners attending group-stage games at the purist’s World Cup in Russia will be £80, a 16% rise on prices in Brazil. “We wanted to make sure that we priced tickets fairly,” honked Fifa secretary general Fatma Samoura.
STILL WANT MORE?
Simone Zaza, chip-topping monsters and the Ssons of Anarchy. It’s the latest David Squires.
Why is 3-5-2 proving so successful at Euro 2016? Floating football brain in a box Jonathan Wilson dons his mac and investigates.
Danny Gabbidon couldn’t write today’s Fiver so he penned this insightful blog on Wales instead.
Do you know your Etrusco Unico from your Telstar 2? If so, this quiz is right up your street.
What have a banjo, a cow’s backside, some nappies, Asterix, Mr Roy, a clown and a sad Second Choice Steve got in common? They all make an appearance in this week’s Gallery on brave England’s efforts at Euro 2016.
Crafty new Manchester City playmaker Ilkay Gundogan gets his chat on with Jamie Jackson. “My favourite position is something between No6 and No8,” he says, confusing simple folk like the Fiver who thought both those positions were just centre midfield.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. AND INSTACHAT TOO!
