During the last few months of his topsy turvy tenure and Manchester United, Jose Mourinho was subject to a number of rumors surrounding his sacking — Zidane replacing him, players threatening to leave unless he was ousted, the whole Paul Pogba ruckus, etc.
In the soccer world, one of the best sights for sore eyes is the return of the Champions League.
Sometimes, watching Champions League teams playing league cup matches against weak opposition can be really dull after a while. For example, Manchester City’s 9-0 drubbing of Burton Albion a few weeks ago. In a lot of ways, European soccer without Champions League becomes kind of monotonous. At some point between the last Champions League group stage match and the start of the Round of 16, soccer fans will be wondering when the tournament will start up again.
The 2018-19 season has been packed full of drama, emotions and even comedy. What happens on the pitch is usually in focus — players making tackles, scoring goals, playing beautiful soccer; all of that takes the cake in media attention. But managers get that attention too. After a goal or an important moment in a match, the camera always pans to the manager, showing their jubilation, anger or their stoicness.
Well, it was coming.
Jose Mourinho was finally sacked as manager of Manchester United. Manchester United’s form this season has been nothing short of poor, recently winning only two of its last seven games — one of the wins coming against bottom-of-the-table Fulham and the other against Champions League strugglers Young Boys.
Jose Mourinho is out of a job. After improving slightly on the work of predecessors David Moyes and Louis van Gaal, the horror of watching Manchester United attempt to play football was still enough to warrant his sacking on Tuesday. This certainly felt inevitable and there are a lot of reasons for the Portuguese’s dismissal, but the Jose Mourinho transfer spending at Manchester United is the easiest way to make sense of it all.
On Wednesday, Jose Mourinho said his team scored four goals and tied 2-2. On Saturday his team scored four goals and won 4-1.
It’s a common refrain to say Jose Mourinho loves boring, defensive football. It’s mostly true these days, especially as he seems to favor long balls to big men in the box over any sort of technical play. His best results of the season (the win over Juventus springs to mind) have come via Route 1 football.
Manchester United and Arsenal’s 2-2 draw on Wednesday at Old Trafford was downright absurd at times. But given all the oddities in the Man U vs Arsenal highlights, one stands out as being a real missed opportunity for an inventive winner. And this match deserved a winner.
Referee Andre Marriner had a complicated match to officiate and whether you’re an Arsenal fan, Manchester United fan or a neutral, you probably don’t think he had a very good performance. Goal-line technology was called into use but you feel VAR would’ve aided this game immensely.
Football is a tribal sport. It’s us against them, good vs. evil, blue versus a more nefarious shade of blue. Soccer fans invest so much of their lives into their respective clubs that losses become marks against their character, burdens upon their very existence.
Jose Mourinho likes to call himself the Special One and pump up his accomplishments. But right now, he’s just the Lucky One.
He’s lucky to have David De Gea in goal making otherworldly saves. He’s lucky to not have VAR in the Champions League or Premier League, helping his club score late goals. And he’s lucky that water bottles are not sentient beings who fight back.
Manchester City achieved what Juventus could not on Sunday, burying Manchester United when another Jose Mourinho smash and grab threatened. Sumptuous goals from David Silva and Sergio Aguero had given City a 2-0 lead, but a needless foul by Ederson on Romelu Lukaku allowed Anthony Martial to halve the deficit in the 58th minute.