/ 18 March 2005

Stuff Uefa and just ask: ‘What would Jose do?’

Of all the charges levelled at Jose Mourinho in the past fortnight, Uefa’s prissy suggestion that he is a poor role model has to rank among the more obvious instances of cobblers to emanate from their saintly halls.

”Coaches are role models for the players and the fans,” the Uefa communications director William Gaillard said of the Chelsea manager after the team’s epic win against Barcelona. ”He must remember what position he is in.”

Uefa is very kind, of course, but for all the possible ugliness that might have marred the aftermath of the game, one very much hopes no one will take one iota of moral guidance from an organisation that studiously declined to do anything about Luis Aragones’s racist outbursts last year.

No, it is hard to imagine the kind of manager Uefa would construct in a lab given half the chance, but he would very likely have Glenn Hoddle’s wit, Alex Ferguson’s good looks and Phil Neal’s streak of charismatic unpredictability. But then, how much of Dr Frankenstein’s time should really be wasted on building a second Howard Wilkinson?

The idea that Uefa is concerned for the fans’ spiritual growth is touching in a way, but its apparent failure to realise that Mourinho is one of the greatest role models in world football is absurd.

What precisely is it that those who carp about this force of nature want to place on a pedestal? A slight disregard for authority ought to earn him a badge of honour when one considers most of the authorities that run the game, and as for the rest of his amusingly arrogant traits, suggesting he’d do well to suppress some of them seems the equivalent of believing the Eddie Murphy role in Beverly Hills Cop would have been better realised by John le Mesurier.

What better and more energising example for young supporters can there be than watching the power of hard work and unapologetic self-belief, laced with enough deadpan humour to remind people not to take it all desperately seriously all of the time? As for raising the articulacy bar, in a country where the apogee of post-match verbiage is usually Ferguson trotting out the old chestnut about wishing he had 10 other Roy Keanes, Mourinho looks positively Wildean.

Hand on heart, at the end of the day, no self-respecting football fan in the land should be able to say they prefer some cliché-ridden ramble about ”the lads having it all to do” to a buccaneer who comes out with the likes of: ”Do not tell me your movie. I am in a movie of my own.”

Here is someone more at ease in his third language than most of his peer group will ever be in their first, single-handedly promoting the press conference to an art form, and letting air in on the stale atmosphere that has become far more corrosive to the life of the game than the odd finger to the lips or lunatic conspiracy theory about a referee.

His put-downs may be caustic, his feuds may be crazy, but the element of high camp is so gloriously embraced that one is quite convinced he can forget them the second he goes home to his family each night. Compare this with Ferguson, whose Rock of Gibraltar-saga made David Blunkett’s paternity battle look like a visit to Walton Mountain, and you realise again that Uefa’s sudden interest in pastoral care is centring on quite the wrong bogeyman.

It would be nice to think a whole generation of fans could be influenced by Jose’s way of doing business. How much better it would be if, rather than ranting their way out of trouble, Ferguson-style, these pupils realised the best way out of a tight spot is to turn on the insouciant charm.

”I was waving to my wife,” said Mourinho of his naughtiness at the Millennium stadium, before going on to discuss his sending-off by a policeman with what, in more fanciful moments, one could believe to be some hilariously cheeky comment on the threatened terror laws. ”This is your country,” he shrugged. ”I have to adapt. I’m happy I’m not going to jail for that.”

Now, at some level, you do have to remove your hat … And when you next find yourself in need of role-model guidance, why not ask yourself an adapted version of the WWJD question so beloved of American Christians. ”What Would Jose Do?” has quite a ring. — Â