As anyone who reads some of the comments on my blogs will know, I have an obsessive follower. He follows me continuously so as to conduct an unrelenting campaign of criticism verging on defamation whenever I write anything positive about FC Barcelona- which is quite often, I admit.
I can reveal that ‘Captain Terry’ –for that is the alias under which he pursues me on the web- is known to me as a good friend from childhood on any other subject but football- otherwise I would have set the dogs on him by now. He is Anglo-Spanish , like I am- but happens to be a life-long supporter of Real Madrid and Chelsea FC-whereas I am a fan of Barca, full-stop. That is the crux of our problem. It is evident that Captain Terry and my uncompromising exchanges are not simply about football rivalries- and Barca’s matches against FC Chelsea have become uncomfortable grudge matches just like their encounters with Real Madrid have always been- but have to do with a way of looking at life as played on the pitch and beyond.
Both Florentino Perez and Ramon Abramovich, the president of Real Madrid and the owner of Chelsea FC respectively, are businessmen who want to see quick returns on their investment. There is of course a distinction to be made in so far as Real Madrid is not financially owned by Perez but by its members whereas Chelsea is owned by the Russian. Nonetheless Perez has imposed his will as much as Abramovich has done, and sees Real Madrid like he sees his multinational construction company ACS- a necessary predator. Players and managers are simply cogs in a money making machine which in turn is supposed to bring ever greater conquests at home and abroad. Style and conduct come second to achievement. The ends justifies the means. Be on a trophy conquering side, and you will be a superstar. Cease to oil the machinery, and you are out on your ear, before too long.
At Real Madrid, Mourinho-who moulded Chelsea in his image before going on to forge mental and operational synergies with Florentino Perez after Italy- has survived because he has delivered some success, although were the Spanish club to fail to go beyond the quarter final of the Champions League and lose La Liga to Barca, then Mourinho would almost certainly be given his marching orders just as Di Matteo has been given his at Chelsea. Mourinho knows this which is why he has been preparing a return to the Premier League for some time. Don’t rule out Chelsea, eventually.
At both Real Madrid and Chelsea , human beings are as dispensable as faulty widgets, as Vicente Del Bosque discovered some years back. But the problem with this hire and fire , this conveyor belt policy, is that a club that pursues it risks losing any sense of collective identity, team ethos, philosophy and style of play-in short, it risks disintegrating leaving nothing but a core of frustrated, thuggish fans.
Which is why I would be very surprised if Pep Guardiola would allow himself to be hired by either club. ( Man City offers a more complex proposition with former Barca men now in the club’s management structure). Guardiola owes everything he was, is, and has become, to FC Barcelona, a club that has accepted Qatar’s sponsorship, but can still claim to be about much more than just winning and making money . It is a club with a set of values that have to do with integrity, generosity, and creativity and inseparable from the political context it finds itself in.
Guardiola, let’s not kid ourselves , is no aesthete. He lives currently in a luxury Manhattan apartment, loves his family and luxuries, and expects money to pay for it all. But either Bernabeu or Stamford Bridge would kill his soul and his reputation-that is my faith. And I know Captain Terry will want to prove me wrong and that Rafa Benitez will want the Chelsea job if nothing else but to prove he can make Torres help win trophies again. The Russian would warm to that. After all, Abrmaovich spent a lot of money on El Nino, the player Benitez originally tempted out of modesty.
Comments