Slipperduke
The Camden Cad
Jose Mourinho smoulders. I wanted to get through this feature without writing anything that might worry my new wife, but there you go, I’ve blown it in the first line. But he really does. He smoulders. He walks into the sweaty, over-crowded press room and sits there in front of the lights, staring down the barrel of about 20 camera crews, approximately 150 football journalists and all you can hear is a muffled crackling from him and the occasional sigh from us.
He is asked if he is happy with the result, but instead of answering he gives his inquisitor the same kind of look that I imagine the Queen gave to that chap who climbed into her Buckingham Palace bedroom back in the 1980s. A combination of disappointment and mild curiosity, as if a scientific specimen has jumped out of its beaker and he’s not sure what it will do next. Still he doesn’t answer. Instead, he takes a bite of a large shortbread biscuit.
He points at ‘Brian‘, the venerable pressroom steward. “This man,” announces Mourinho through a mouthful of crumbs, “brought me biscuits for three years. Tonight, he does so again. Thank you.” 150 football journalists wonder if they should write this down.
Some of his crumbs land on the late arrivals who are sitting on the floor in front of him like school children. They don’t seem to mind. Silence falls over the room again. Mourinho swallows.
“Excuse me,” he says and he slowly takes the cap off a bottle of water. No-one moves. Mourinho pours half a glass and drinks, one, two, three gulps. The empty glass is set down. He clasps his hands together. He leans forward. We lean forward. The tape recorders that have now successfully captured some 90 seconds of crunching, chewing, gulping and sighing seem to twitch in readiness on the table in front of him.
“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I am very happy.”
There is a pause. Mourinho sucks up the silence and then, when he feels we have earned his words with our patience, he begins. He speaks thoughtfully, with consideration and respect. He is happy to win, but not happy because Chelsea are unhappy. He is happy because Inter were the better side, something he mentions at least eight times. He is happy because he worked hard for this night, another theme he returns to frequently. He says ‘happy’ a lot over the course of the night, but the funny thing is that he never actually looks very happy. He barely even cracks a smile.
This isn’t glory for him, this is only what he expected. He never even considered defeat, so why be over-excited? He sits for twenty unsmiling minutes, answering questions in English and Italian, batting away the tricky ones as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Under the lights, his interpreter and his press officer are visibly sweating, but Mourinho continues simply to smoulder.
His obligations completed, he rises and slips away with only a brief ‘grazie’ to the crowd. Tape recorders are clicked off, 150 journalists chatter excitedly and, just for a moment, a faint coil of grey smoke seems to rise slowly above Mourinho’s empty chair.
This never used to happen with Avram Grant.
He is asked if he is happy with the result, but instead of answering he gives his inquisitor the same kind of look that I imagine the Queen gave to that chap who climbed into her Buckingham Palace bedroom back in the 1980s. A combination of disappointment and mild curiosity, as if a scientific specimen has jumped out of its beaker and he’s not sure what it will do next. Still he doesn’t answer. Instead, he takes a bite of a large shortbread biscuit.
He points at ‘Brian‘, the venerable pressroom steward. “This man,” announces Mourinho through a mouthful of crumbs, “brought me biscuits for three years. Tonight, he does so again. Thank you.” 150 football journalists wonder if they should write this down.
Some of his crumbs land on the late arrivals who are sitting on the floor in front of him like school children. They don’t seem to mind. Silence falls over the room again. Mourinho swallows.
“Excuse me,” he says and he slowly takes the cap off a bottle of water. No-one moves. Mourinho pours half a glass and drinks, one, two, three gulps. The empty glass is set down. He clasps his hands together. He leans forward. We lean forward. The tape recorders that have now successfully captured some 90 seconds of crunching, chewing, gulping and sighing seem to twitch in readiness on the table in front of him.
“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I am very happy.”
There is a pause. Mourinho sucks up the silence and then, when he feels we have earned his words with our patience, he begins. He speaks thoughtfully, with consideration and respect. He is happy to win, but not happy because Chelsea are unhappy. He is happy because Inter were the better side, something he mentions at least eight times. He is happy because he worked hard for this night, another theme he returns to frequently. He says ‘happy’ a lot over the course of the night, but the funny thing is that he never actually looks very happy. He barely even cracks a smile.
This isn’t glory for him, this is only what he expected. He never even considered defeat, so why be over-excited? He sits for twenty unsmiling minutes, answering questions in English and Italian, batting away the tricky ones as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Under the lights, his interpreter and his press officer are visibly sweating, but Mourinho continues simply to smoulder.
His obligations completed, he rises and slips away with only a brief ‘grazie’ to the crowd. Tape recorders are clicked off, 150 journalists chatter excitedly and, just for a moment, a faint coil of grey smoke seems to rise slowly above Mourinho’s empty chair.
This never used to happen with Avram Grant.
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