Mourinho’s Black Magic
I can’ say that I can remember many moments of football that have made me feel physically sick before inducing a prolongued bout of black dog (depression) but few have provoked both reactions as much as the site of Jose Mourinho scampering across the turf of the Camp Nou, and striking his defiant pose af the end of last night’s match.
If ever there was a moment of profound profanity it was this one. Bobby Robson’s one-time transalator, since elevated to the status of ‘special one’ by a culture based on arrogance and thuggery, had penetrated and abused the inner sanctum of the beautiful game, turning its fantastic tapestry to dust and substituting it with his very own version of black magic.
For over ninety minutes we watched what had been promised as a great spectacle reduced to a tedious, and at times graceless war of attrition with Inter’s two solid bank of defenders breaking and utltimately closing down Barca’s artifice.
All sense of mutual respect dissipated with every Mourinho gesticulation, his terrible sense of theatrics, and the rough tactics of his players, seemingly permeating Barca players like Busquets and Messi and reducing them to cheats.
This was football with beauty and poetry snuffed out of it, and with neither team, in the end playing with the nobility of champions. For al this I blame Mourinho. His satanic arts danced and played, exposing the key weakness in the Barca team-Ibrahimovic-and reducing Pep Guardiola to making mistakes under pressure- like not substituting the useless Swede much early on, and starting with Gabriel Milito instead of Maxwell.
I would like to hang on to the great moments this team has given us this season (see previous blogs). And it is because I believe that Barca can play the best football in the world, that I breakfasted with a sour taste this morning, thinking how deserving Mourinho is of the Bernabeu.
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