JUAN TO WATCH
Some people can’t help but be nice. They have a nice face, nice manners, nice attitude and actions, write nice blogs and play football very, very nicely indeed. Like Juan Mata, for example. He’s just nice, isn’t he? He goes to galleries. He takes lovely scenic photos for InstaBook. He signs off blogposts with “hugs”. Even when he tries to be angry, it doesn’t really work. Mata is so nice that he probably didn’t even feel dread at the pit of his stomach when José Mourinho was appointed Manchester United manager. And he would have been fully justified in doing so, given that he’s already been doing his lovely thing and delighting most that watched him at one club, before Mourinho rocked up, decided he didn’t kick people enough and sold him on.
He probably thought instead: “No, I’m going to give him another chance. Everyone deserves a clean slate. You shouldn’t hold grudges. It’s bad for the soul. I believe José is a good man at heart and we should all treat others as we would like to be treated. It does no good to be angry at people, no matter whether you think they have done you wrong before. I welcome him.” Mourinho, on the other hand, is … well … not so nice. He needles, he pokes, he jibes; he can’t seem to help but be nasty. Even the people that like him and endorse his methods admit that he’s quite the git. When he talks about the titles that the teams he’s managed have won, he talks in the first person: “I am European champion” or “I won the league in four countries”, but curiously enough he rarely says: “I was 16th in the league after I lost nine from 16 games last season and I got sacked.”
When these two worlds collide, it’s rarely pretty, and so it materialised during United’s Charidee Shield win over Leicester on Sunday. Mata wasn’t in the starting XI, something he might well have to get used to, but was brought on in the second half. All part of the game, Saint, but wait! In the closing stages Mourinho wanted to give Henrikh Mkhitaryan a taste of the fearsome Wembley atmosphere and to disrupt things a bit, so he had to choose someone to take off. He couldn’t remove Mata, who had only been on the pitch for 30 minutes, right? Wrong. “The rules allow six changes, I had made five and I wanted to stop the game,” Mourinho explained. “I need to take off the smallest player because we were expecting a lot of long balls. Mata is the smallest one. I couldn’t take Zlatan or Fellaini off because Leicester’s ‘Rory Delap’ throw-ins would win it.”
Hey, maybe José is telling the truth. Maybe he did remove Mata for tactical reasons. Maybe he did want to retain a bit of physicality. Maybe it was because the 5ft 7in Mata wouldn’t have been much good in the air. But it also smacks of a man standing over an adversary with a cosh in one hand, not using or even brandishing it but just making sure the other guy knows it’s there. It’s giving a toy to a child and then taking it straight back. It’s taking one bite of a sandwich in front of a homeless man, then throwing it into the river. This was the managerial equivalent of saying “I’m in charge, and I can take you down whenever I want”, before grinning and ‘playfully’ slapping him in the face.
“Mata is fine, he understands what I did,” Mourinho insisted. Of course he did José – you know why? Because he’s the nicest man in the world and you should stop being so mean to him. Mourinho capped off his afternoon by spotting a “gentleman” sleeping “like an angel” at the back of his post-match press conference, and chuckling heartily at the whole thing. As it turned out the “gentleman” was in fact a woman, one of the stewards that has to stick around at Wembley waaaay after the final whistle and who probably just wanted to go home. It presumably didn’t occur to him that she’d dropped off after listening to him drone on like he’s the centre of the universe again. He will never change.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I felt like I was alone a little bit out there, I felt that I didn’t know the club but the one constant out there was the fans and that they were supporting me … making me banners, sending me flowers. What I decided to do in response was to try to keep a two-way communication going between me and the fans so they were always aware of what was really going on with me” – Darius Vassell on the loneliness and love that drove him to write that blog about his day-to-day life in Turkey while playing for Ankaragucu.
STAR TURN OF THE DAY
25 July: “Roberto [Mancini] is our star player. It is with his ability and experience that we want to try and improve on last year’s league position to qualify for [Big Cup]” – Inter president Erick Thohir backs the club’s manager.
8 August: “FC Internazionale Milano announces that it has reached an agreement for the termination of the contract with the coach Roberto Mancini” – Inter sack their star player, with Frank de Boer set to take charge.
FIVER LETTERS
“Re: Fellaini’s head to carry the ball (Fiver letters passim). Better late than never. While in a game on the lovely Singapore Padang field some years ago, one of our opponents, an extremely talented player, flicked the ball on to his head and kept it there. He then jogged upfield towards our goal. Cue general panic. We were saved by the referee, the late great George Suppiah – Singapore’s lone representative at a World Cup – who blew for ungentlemanly conduct. Interestingly, the player in question had no hair at all, no Fellaini-style nest to support it” – Jeremy Foxon.
“I hate to join the ranks of the Fiver Pedantry Brigade, but I think you need to rename the ‘Hardest League In The World To Get Out Of’ (Friday’s Fiver). Bolton Wanderers didn’t put much effort in at all last season, and they got out of it just fine” – Dan Makeham (and 1,056 others).
“Am I going mad or did I just read you refer to Taxpayers’ FC as ‘West Ham’ (Friday’s Bits and Bobs)? This is misrepresentation of the highest order and has made me feel physically sick. Please amend” – Harry Shawyer [apologies, typo – Fiver Ed].
“I have a tale of woe to impart. As a lifelong supporter/fan/follower of the ‘appy ‘Ammers (no, no … wait for it. That isn’t the woeful part. Well, it is, but only minor compared to what is coming). Anyway, I decided to buy a couple of seats from the Boleyn Ground for my ‘kids’ who live abroad. I finally received them, with the authentic cigarette stub stains and even some ancient, fossilised chewing gum and sent them on, only to find out that tax was charged on them. So this means that I paid money from my taxed income to Taxpayers FC and was then taxed in Canada. A triple whammy if ever I heard of one” – Peter Arnold.
“Talking of close encounters (Fiver letters passim), I’d tell you about seeing Stuart Pearce, with what I guess was his other half, at a Secret Cinema showing of Dirty Dancing last month, but admitting I was there myself would ruin my street cred, so I won’t” – Jon Clarke.
“Back in the early 90s I saw Arthur Albiston wandering around Taronga Zoo in Sydney with his (I presume) family. Pretty sure it was him as it was off-season and it looked like him. But then the curly perm look was pretty popular in Australia at this time so it could have just been some dude wandering around. Perhaps if Arthur, or a close relative or friend who knows of his holiday movements in the early 90s, is reading this they could provide the answer” – Mark J Jones.
“On the subject of recent close encounters with Peter Beardsley, on a recent and rather balmy end-of-July weekday following another long hard slog of working for The Man, I jumped on the Piccadilly line heading into central London from Hammersmith and who did I see in the same carriage as me clutching a (rather expensive) gentleman’s satchel and looking like he’d just been at some fancy west London golf day? Only the 59-cap-winning looker himself. It reminded me of the time I saw Stuart Pearce waiting at a bus stop as I was on my way to play some Sunday morning scrimmage with some pals in a residential area of Geneva near the UN offices. To help The Fiver with some more filler, do any other pedants have stories of footballers from the pre-Sky-millions-era intent on keeping it real with travel via public transport?” – Matthew Scrivener [here’s a starter – Fiver Ed].
“With reference to ‘former Fulham and Norway defensive telegraph pole Brede Hangeland” (Friday’s Bits and Bobs), perhaps the is a good time to remind ourselves that Brede was also a Photoshop model while at Crystal Palace” – James Nicholson.
• 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 long-suffering reader Alan Gernon’s new book, Retired: What Happens to Footballers When the Game’s Up, is … Harry Shawyer. We’ve got more to give away so get typing.
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BITS AND BOBS
Nearly there: man travels in car.
Like Ian Brown in 2001, Arsène Wenger’s got the F.E.A.R. “I’m quite scared of the day [I retire]. The longer I wait, the more difficult it will be and the more difficult it will be to lose the addiction,” sniffed the Arsenal boss, as output went through the roof on WengerOut banner production lines.
Brazil continue to dance all over the grave of joga bonito at Big Sports Day, with Neymar and co doing a little moonwalk all over it during a dire 0-0 draw with Iraq.
More Brazilian woe: Gabriel is a major doubt to face Liverpool in Arsenal’s Premier League opener after suffering generic leg-knack in the friendly against Manchester City.
Jürgen Klopp lauded his Liverpool players after their 4-0 pre-season win over Barcelona on Saturday. “Great football, good buildup, we played between their rows and in the half-spaces and it was all good,” he cheered.
Jürgen Klopp bemoaned the performance of his Liverpool players after their 4-0 pre-season defeat by Mainz on Sunday. “That’s a very important lesson,” he growled.
Taxpayers’ FC’s new £6m signing from Olympiakos sounds like fun. “It’s going to be crazy,” yelled Arthur Masuaku after checking in.
Katrien Meire, the popular Charlton Athletic chief suit, has been appointed to the FA Council as one of four Football League representatives.
“Here go Jossy’s Giants. Football’s just a branch of science. Head the ball, now Jossy calls …” Oh Jesé, you say? Ah. Well, he’s done one to PSG from Real Madrid. Move along.
Won’t somebody just buy Christian Benteke.
And after a stellar managerial career Gary Neville has rejoined Sky Sports Monday Night Football. “FFS,” bantzed Jamie Carragher.
STILL WANT MORE?
It’s plucky little Manchester United’s turn for a season preview today. Paul Wilson dons his tin hat.
And next up, Louise Taylor drags a fine-toothed comb through Middlesbrough’s hopes before their first match back in the big league.
From The Bulldog to the next Busquets, Louise also helpfully picks out 10 Premier League signings to watch so that you don’t have to.
Geometric fuse-welding, a new corporate visual identity and Ailsa from Home and Away’s new beard are just three of 11 things to look out for in the Premier League this season that you wouldn’t have looked out for if this Observer feature hadn’t pointed them out.
There was a twinkle in Nottingham Forest manager Philippe Montanier’s eye on Saturday. Why, you ask? Because his absurdly young side were dead good fun against Burton, hoots Nick Miller.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. AND INSTACHAT, TOO!
