Mourhino blasts Cruyff then.... read my sig

JosZ answers Johan Cruyff. Who looks silly.

By EuroBlue

JosZ Mourinho is a manager who can be cold, calculating and devastating when it comes to answering back to his critics. We could recall any number of incidents when employees of Arsenal, Liverpool or Manchester United had a snipe at him, only to watch a distant pair of Blue Heels on the horizon.

The latest football luminary to have had a pop at JosZ was Dutch 'legend' Johan Cruyff. Cruyff, employed now by Barcelona to pontificate on everything and anything, suggested at the end of September that JosZ had a duty to produce a team that entertains as well as wins.

The Dutch master patronised JosZ by stating to BBC Radio Five Live at the end of September that JosZ is "a very good practical coach. But in his position he should think about the performances too".

"The result is not the only thing a big team should be thinking about. What he must try to do is have respect for everybody. If you are a top team then you have to have more respect."

Cruff then had some rubbish to say about the incident at the Nou Camp last Spring. "His behaviour against Rijkaard at Barcelona was not good. It was not a good example". Presumably that would be the same behaviour following an incident about which the referee in question, Anders Frisk, wrote in his report on the game that he had to expel Frank Rijkaard from his dressing room as Rijkaard badgered Frisk 3 times during the half-time break. Apparently JosZ mentioning this to the press was unacceptable. What was forgivable, however, was that Rijkaard harbutted the ref.

Usually when this kind of thing happens, JosZ follows his own devastating strategy. Some misguided fool takes a pop at JosZ. JosZ then waits for the moment, and he replies citing facts that justify his counter-attack. In this case, JosZ delivered a put-down to Johan Cruyff that must really hurt and humiliate the Dutchman. And so, this weekend, JosZ let rip with both barrels in his column in the Portuguese newspaper 'RZcord'.

'Let the reader imagine the following scenario. After being Champion of Europe with Porto, I hung up my boots and dedicated myself to playing golf and to criticise those others who continue to work, having as a hobby being an advisor to Vitoria Setubal, his local team. It could be the beginning of a lovely story, but that wouldn't be my story. It's closer to that of Johan Cruyff, who after having left Bar�a, managed to achieve that everybody remembers that he was a European champion and everybody forgets that he was always a national champion only because of some freak results elsewhere on the last day of the League (on two occasions at Tenerife and at A Corun-a), and everybody also forgets that fantastic final between Barcelona and Milan when the 'pragmatic' Fabio Capello beat Cruyff's Barcelona 4-0.'

The emphasis on 'pragmatic' was, as always, calculated, as Cruyff criticised JosZ for his excessive pragmatism, i.e. the end result are the most important aspect of his play.

'Since 1996, Cruyff has been playing golf and criticising; since 1996 he has been manipulating and profiting from the power that he had as a result of being a fantastic football player; since 1996, football has been waiting for him to teach us. I would like him to come and teach me. I say that with humility'

'I would like him to teach me to be a better coach, as I don't want to stop learning. But he can't teach me to be the Champion as I have been that already 3 times, and I was never the Champion because Djukic missed a penalty in the last minute of the last game. He can't teach me how to win the UEFA Cup because I have that as well. He can't teach me how to be champion of Europe, because I've already been that. And I don't want him to teach me how to lose a Champions League final 4-0 because I don't want to learn that. I won the UEFA cup in a spectacular final with five goals, I won the Champions League by a 3-0 scoreline in the final; I won the Premiership with a record number of wins, and now I'm leading the Premier League with the most goals scored.'

'I had a boss who always said "coaches who were great players don't need to work or to win, they can get by only with the power that they have been given for what they were; coaches that weren't great players always need to work, to win and to listen to the owners of the truth. Let Cruyff come. Football has been waiting for him for ten years now. And, if possible, let him come to English football, where he might possible learn that he's in the 21st Century now'.

And with that, JosZ put away his rapier, contemplating the bloodied and battered body of Johan Cruyff's reputation at his feet, having delivered a series of cold but deadly blows to the foundations from which Cruyff allowed himself to snipe in a petty fashion at a coach who, frankly, has already achieved more than Cruff.

The thing is, Johan Cruyff has spent the past 10 years living off his own reputation, not to mention the beatification from which he has benefited in Barcelona circles. It might have been better for Bar�a not to put the man on such an elevated pedestal, and for journalists to have been a tad less obsequious of the man, as with each pronouncement, he ends up becoming more and more pretentious and pompous. After all, despite a magnificent CV as a player (nobody can and should take that away from him), his reputation as a coach has been somewhat exaggerated in the reflected glory of Cruyff the player. People forget, for instance, a large number of very mediocre players that he purchased for Barcelona (Busquets, Angoy - his son-in-law, Lucendo, Escaich, Jose Mari, Eskurza, Korneyev, Hagi, Prosinecki, Kodro, OnZsimo,Aloisio, Romerito, or even one Jordi Cruyff, his son, who ended up playing for local rivals Espanyol). On the other hand, his managerial genius allowed Cruyff to humiliate one of Spain's greatest goalkeepers ever, Zibizarreta, after losing that memorable European cup final, or Laudrup, who left Barcelona for Madrid, where he promptly won a League.

Indeed, the mention of the European Cup final must be particularly painful. Milan rode roughshod over Bar�a in a match in which all Capello's hard work contrasted with Bar�a's love of spectacular football. That spectacular football really was not a consolation for the Blaugrana, who were humiliated that night. Indeed, Cruyff's comments before the match will have been anything but a soothing balm having been thrashed by Milan: "We have Romario, they have Desailly". Yes, but Desailly has a Champions League medal.

Finally, for all the spectacular, flowing football that Cruyff considers is the fans' right, JosZ won none of his 3 successive League titles only during the last game of the season due to freak results in the opponents' matches. Furthermore, the inventor of 'total football' was always humiliated every time he went to the Bernabeu stadium.

We would repeat that Cruyff was a great player, one of the best ever. As a coach, he was vastly over-rated, and he's been living off that ever since, in a position from which he currently allows himself to give advice that somewhat contrast to his own achievements as a coach. It is strange, for instance, that Johan Cruyff always managed to justify his defeats on a third party: if it wasn't referees, it was his own players, many of which ended up sick of being blamed for their bosses shortfalls. Nobody ever heard him acknowledge his own responsibility and errors for bad results (such as making Gary Lineker play on the wing). That is not the hallmark of a genius, only of arrogance. And for all that one reproaches of JosZ Mourinho, he has the decency and humility to take his own responsibility for a bad result.

Thanks JosZ, not only for having stood up to one of the great tiresome bores of the game, but for having done it in such a devastating fashion. We almost hope that Cruyff will be foolish enough to try to answer back so that JosZ can deliver another blow. -- "I rate Steven Gerrard so highly and he is one of the best midfielders in the world and I call Jamie Carragher my Marathon Man." Dutch football legend Johan Cruyff