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We should never forget that the Premier League is essentially the most popular soap opera in the world. Yes, there is football, winning and losing games, and that is important, but then there is the constant drama, the ridiculous plots, the intrigue, the operatic farce. It is the convergence of the two that has made football a global obsession. All the best soap operas need a great villain and the greatest, the Dirty Den, the Paul Robinson, the JR Ewing of football, is José Mourinho.
Mourinho is now sixty, his hair white and his eyes high above the shadows. The old shtick has worn a little thin. The power to predict the course of matches has left him. The game has moved on and so have the players: he cannot, as before, fan the indignant fire of the unjust avenger in his squads. He once mocked Rafa Benítez for winning the Europa League; now he is celebrating winning the Conference League and was so angry at not winning the Europa League last season that he waited in the car park for referee Anthony Taylor after the final.
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Mourinho has become smaller and yet there remains something irresistible about him. Within hours of his sacking by Roma on Tuesday, stories emerged claiming Newcastle have absolutely no intention of appointing him. (To be clear, Newcastle is responding to questions rather than making a proactive statement, yet it revealed how many journalists and social media commentators made the connection.) Why would a club backed by Saudi Arabia's vast wealth Public Investment Fund, which looks up hopefully from the foothills of greatness, appoints a coach who has not been at the pinnacle of his profession for ten years? And yet, and yet...
Most fans may still be rooting for Eddie Howe despite the poor form. Sporting director Dan Ashworth may prefer someone closer to the tactical forefront than a coach whose glory lies in the era of pre-match exhaustion. guardiolista revolution.
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But who actually makes the decisions? Because Newcastle have not had to make a managerial change since Howe replaced Steve Bruce following his inevitable sacking in October 2021, no one knows exactly who is making these calls. Mourinho's charisma was enough to tempt even a chairman as experienced as Tottenham's Daniel Levy in 2019; would it be so surprising if he caught the attention of Yasir al-Rumayyan or another Saudi director, especially given his position as a board member at the Mahd Sports Academy in Jeddah, alongside the influential Princess Reema bint Bandar al-Saud and the Assistant Minister of Sports?
Moreover, there is something about Mourinho going to Newcastle that feels right, and not just because he described himself as 'a little magpie' three years ago, after hearing stories about the club and the passion of his fans at the knees of Bobby Robson. Mourinho's greatest successes at Porto, Chelsea and Internazionale have come with clubs that were able to portray themselves as rebellious outsiders, taking on the establishment. That's exactly how Newcastle CEO Darren Eales portrayed the club - poor, benighted Newcastle, cursed with the richest owners in the world - when he explained last week how limited the club is by profit and sustainability rules.
Since the PIF takeover, Newcastle appear to have embraced the dark side; the paranoid passion of some of their more vocal fans, those who see any concern about human rights abuses, or title-buying states, as motivated by club loyalty or a global conspiracy to oppress the Geordie people, seems fertile ground for classic Mourinho pouting and whining. The coincidence of Mourinho losing his job just as Newcastle have lost six of their last seven league games is almost too perfect.
But if Newcastle fail - and it must be stressed that the club is determined that Howe's job is not in jeopardy - where does Mourinho go? He has made little secret of the fact that he sees himself as manager of Portugal at some point, but that job won't be available until the Euros at the earliest: Roberto Martínez's ten games in charge have seen ten wins and a total goal difference of 36-2.
Which clubs would want to take him? A third spell at Chelsea just to cement their status under Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali as the greatest example yet of a football club as a joke project? A climax of the vanities at Paris Saint-Germain? A triumphant return to Barcelona, with Joan Laporta making the appointment he failed to make in 2008 when he opted for Pep Guardiola instead, to sow the grass that brought the world 15 years of hegemony positionposition?
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The problem is that there's almost no option that doesn't immediately sound hilarious, something you'd like to see but wouldn't like to see in your own club. Roma was a little different from other recent courses, given how popular Mourinho remained with the fans until the end and how relatively limited its toxicity, but it still fit the familiar pattern: the revival of his arrival and an immediate revival that may already have brought early success. growing friction with the team and/or directors as results deteriorate before the final collapse.
With each track the highs get a little lower. Finishing sixth in Serie A and considering it a triumph given the lack of resources feels inappropriate for a manager who once battled with the gods.
So where now? Mourinho doesn't need the money; a recent survey ranked him as the richest coach in the world with a net worth of almost £100 million. Rather, he seems driven by resentment and the need to prove he was right by rejecting Barcelona's principles when the club rejected him in 2008, turning his back on pressing and possession and adopting an approach of radical reactivity.
But to do that, to achieve one last great triumph, he needs his podium. The clubs that can sign him, the clubs that can afford him, probably don't want him. Logic suggests a stint in the Saudi Pro League, but the story of the Premier League's great soap opera requires the Little Magpie to fly to St. James to do one last job for Sir Bobby.
