The Weekly Take, Issue 4: ‘The Special One’? More like ‘The Greatest One’

In the lead-up to the recent match between Manchester United and Chelsea, many of the sports world’s headlines were dominated by the rivalry between Manchester United head coach José Mourinho and his counterpart at Chelsea, Antonio Conte.

However, once the match was completed, it was clear that the question of who is the superior coach should really never have been a question at all.

Despite falling behind to a first-half goal by Willian, Manchester United were clearly the better of the two teams in terms of strategy and coaching, as shown by how United’s backline restricted Eden Hazard and Álvaro Morata, as well as by the fact that Jesse Lingard, who came on as a substitute, scored the winning goal for United.

Conte is certainly a fine coach. He has achieved much at both Juventus and Chelsea. There is no shame in being outcoached and out-strategised by the greatest head coach in the history of football.

Yes, I went there.

You can throw any other name at me. Helenio Herrera. Arrigo Sacchi. Alex Ferguson. Pep Guardiola. Jupp Heynckes. Carlo Ancelotti. Bob Paisley. Rinus Michels.

I would still take José Mourinho over every single one of those names.

You may say “he only has two Champions League titles”.

Of those names, only Paisley and Ancelotti have more, and Paisley’s came before the 1999-2000 season, which marks the beginning of what I consider the modern Champions League era.

This is because it was the first time after expansion of the tournament to include non-champions from superior leagues that the Champions League had its current 32-team format.

With regard to Ancelotti, José Mourinho led Porto and Inter Milan, two underdog teams, to win the Champions League.

Ancelotti, as well as every other name I mentioned, won with stacked teams expected to win it all.

Porto in 2004 and Inter Milan in 2010 were not among the favourites to win the title at the beginning of the season.

I consider his triumph with Porto as the greatest coaching performance in football history because of the strategic genius shown throughout their campaign in their victories against, on paper, superior teams.

Mourinho has also revolutionised football strategy in a way that only Guardiola, Herrera, and Michels can claim to have done.

His counter-attacking strategies, timely substitutions, and ability to adapt his own team’s tactics to counter those of his next opponent are unmatched in modern football.

He is often criticized for using “ugly” strategies, playing too defensively, and not being conventionally “entertaining” (though defensive-minded tactics can be just as entertaining to watch as offensive-minded ones).

And yet, in spite of the criticism he receives, he holds firm to his tactics, so much so that you can tell that a team is a Mourinho team by their playstyle and setup, and this persistence in the face of his detractors has given Mourinho tremendous success.

Eight league titles, two Champions Leagues, two Europa Leagues, five national super cups, four national cups, and four side cups over an 18-year coaching career.

Out of 871 games he has coached, he has won a staggering 570 and drawn 178.

Mourinho's teams thus average 2.17 points per game.

That’s a number that would have placed him in a Champions League spot in all four major leagues.

This is a career average, not a selection of peak seasons.

Some criticise him for never staying for long at a club – his longest time spent at one club is five years and nine months, which was at Chelsea. Even then, it was over two stints.

But do we hold it against Diego Maradona for playing for six clubs over his career? Or Ronaldo for playing for seven, including direct rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid, as well as Inter Milan and AC Milan?

Furthermore, there have other great coaches who never spent too long at the same club.

Sacchi’s longest tenure was at AC Milan: five years over two stints.

Guardiola’s longest was his four-year stint in charge of Barcelona.

Hence, it makes no sense to hold Mourinho to a different standard.

Now, it may not necessarily be the case that Mourinho remains the greatest of all time for that much longer.

If Guardiola or Heynckes lead their teams to a Champions League title soon, that would put them in the conversation.

But for now, they still rank behind the touchline wizard from Setúbal, Portugal.

The Weekly Take, Issue 3: The Curse of a Weak Domestic League

The highly-anticipated clash between Real Madrid and PSG, two of the teams expected to be among the leading contenders to win this season’s UEFA Champions League, ultimately ended up being rather one-sided, with Real winning 3-1.

However, what I would like to highlight is this: the result is a clear indictment of the low standards of Ligue 1.

PSG’s dominance in their domestic league looks impressive on paper, but this domestic dominance actually hurts them greatly when they play in the Champions League.

The fact that Ligue 1 is so weak allows PSG to get away with bad habits, sloppy play here and there, and sub-optimal performances. In a league where they have no true challenger, this poses no problems to them in the domestic league.

However, week after week, game after game, these bad habits and complacency can easily end up becoming a part of the team’s identity. What happens when this team carries such an identity into a match against a team like Real Madrid, who are not only loaded with superstars, but also play in a far more treacherous, difficult league every single week?

Against Real Madrid, PSG were completely exposed. They only took four corner kicks to Real’s 11 and launched 20% fewer attacks than Real Madrid did, despite having the same amount of possession. The likes of Yuri Berchiche and Giovani Lo Celso had truly dismal performances which they could easily have gotten away with in Ligue 1, but certainly not against a team like Real.

This has happened to PSG before.

Last year, PSG conceded three late goals to be knocked out by Barcelona.

Once again, the quality of play they produced in the final minutes would have been enough to hang on against an average Ligue 1 team, but against Barça, the complacency and over-confidence they showed led to their shocking exit.

Among the teams that participated in the first set of first-leg round of 16 matches, the other teams not from one of the major European leagues also showed their frailties.

In the three matches involving a team not from one of the four leading leagues against a team from such a league, the three teams from the weaker leagues (Basel, Porto, PSG) were outscored by a combined 12 goals to 1.

When Shakhtar Donetsk play against Roma and Beşiktaş against Bayern Munich later this week, expect the gap to grow even wider, as both will likely lose.

Although Porto do not lead their league by quite the same margin that PSG do, and Basel are not even top of their league, the point is still as clear as ever: a weak domestic league does not prepare a team well for the Champions League.

The history of the Champions League has also shown that you almost certainly have to be from a strong domestic league to win it all, which makes sense, as the domestic league should be where a team undergoes trials and challenges week after week so that they will be ready to take on Europe’s finest teams on the biggest stage of them all.

Since 1996, with the exception of Porto in 2004, every single team to have won the Champions League has been from the Bundesliga, Premier League, Serie A, or La Liga. It must also be kept in mind that Porto were led by arguably the greatest head coach of all time in José Mourinho.

In fact, not since Porto and Monaco that year has a team from outside the four major leagues even reached the final of the Champions League.

That’s not even the most revealing statistic.

When Monaco made last season’s semifinals, it was the first time in seven years that a team from outside the four major leagues had even made it that far.

It will obviously take something truly remarkable for a team outside Spain, England, Germany, or Italy to win the Champions League.

This is because as long as Ligue 1, as well as the other leagues across Europe, do not raise their overall level of performance, their respective clubs’ performances in the Champions League will continue to suffer because of the lack of top-class opponents they face in their own country.

The Weekly Take, Issue 2: The King in the North Strikes Again

Harry Kane has done it again.

The man who has become the bane of Arsenal’s existence scored his seventh career league goal against the Gunners to win the North London derby for Tottenham.

In what was a slow-burner of a game that came to life in the second half, Kane once again proved that he will be the cornerstone of any success that Tottenham and England will have, both now and in the future.

As much hype as he has been getting, and deservedly so, I don’t think many people realize how historically great Kane has been up to this point in his career.

Kane is currently 24 years old and, as of this article, has scored 115 career league goals in 195 matches, with 101 of them coming in a major league (which will be defined as one of the following: La Liga, the Bundesliga, the Premier League, or the Serie A).

Here are how some of the finest marksmen of recent years stacked up through their respective age-24 seasons.

Cristiano Ronaldo: 196 matches, 84 goals, 81 major-league goals.

Zlatan Ibrahimović: 184 matches, 74 goals, 23 major-league goals.

Robert Lewandowski: 215 matches, 122 goals, 54 major-league goals.

Neymar: 195 matches, 109 goals, 55 major-league goals.

Keeping in mind that the current season isn’t over yet, at his current goal-scoring pace, Kane finds himself in elite company.

What may be equally impressive is the burden which Kane has had to shoulder.

From the beginning of the 2014-15 season up to the writing of this article, Kane has accounted for just under 35% of all goals scored by Tottenham in all competitions.

Kane already has two Premier League Golden Boots under his belt, and currently leads the race for an even more prestigious honour: the European Golden Shoe. He is ahead of names such as Edinson Cavani, Lionel Messi, Neymar, and Lewandowski.

It is evident that Kane, barring future adverse circumstances, is not only a superstar, but on his way to becoming the next English football legend.

That brings me to my next point: if Harry Kane continues dominating the way he has so far, there is a real possibility that the once-unthinkable could happen.

England may actually have a genuine chance to win the 2022 World Cup.

In 23 appearances for England, Kane has already scored 12 goals, including seven in his last six matches.

It’s not as if he has spent his England career beating up on minnows, either – he has scored goals against Switzerland, Germany, and France.

If Kane carries his present form into the World Cup in June, it is possible that England may make a deep run.

Other than Kane, the likes of Dele Alli, Raheem Sterling, Eric Dier, Ross Barkley, and John Stones, just to name a few, will be in their primes when Qatar 2022 comes around.

England have their superstar for the present and the future to build around, and they have a young supporting cast who have already achieved much at club level.

The coming World Cup in Russia is far too soon for England to contend for the title, but if Kane and the rest of the crew develop the way they are currently looking like doing, the Three Lions might very well lift the World Cup trophy four years from now.

The last player that Tottenham Hotspur had on their roster of this level was Gareth Bale. Coincidentally, Kane has been linked with Real Madrid, Bale’s current club.

However, if Tottenham are to move to the next level and challenge for Premier League, and maybe even Champions League titles, the most important thing they can do is get Kane to commit his future to Tottenham.

Players of Kane’s calibre can destroy a club by leaving. However, if he stays, it could be the catalyst for an era of success which Tottenham Hotspur have not enjoyed since their 1960s glory days, when they won five trophies in seven seasons.

However, whether he stays or leaves, one thing is certain: Harry Kane is a marksman of the highest order.

The Weekly Take, Issue 1: The Most Disrespected Football Club in the World

Many fans of various teams across the world will claim that their club gets no respect from others.

Fans of Real Madrid, Manchester City, and PSG will say that they don’t get the credit they deserve because they are perceived as having spent their way to the top, rather than having built a team organically.

Meanwhile, fans of teams such as Barcelona, Juventus, and Manchester United will say that their insistence on playing a certain way, sometimes at the expense of results, invites ridicule.

Still others, such as fans of Tottenham, Liverpool, and Bayer Leverkusen, say that their respective clubs’ long trophy droughts make them easy targets.

However, there is one club that nearly everyone has forgotten about. A club that delivers results season after season and is certainly among the world’s leading clubs, but is never talked about at that level.

Not only has this club been consistently performing at a high level for years, but it has also done so while losing star player after star player, and it also has a far lower budget than many of its rivals. Despite this, this club is often slept on by fans.

This club is Atlético Madrid.

As I write this, Atlético have just beaten Valencia, who lie third in La Liga, in a 1-0 victory highlighted by a spectacular Ángel Correa goal. Atlético are currently second, nine points behind Barcelona.

Given their relative lack of resources, especially compared to the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, and Manchester City, just to name a few, what they have achieved over the last decade has been truly remarkable.

Over the last ten seasons, Atlético have finished in the top four in La Liga, thus qualifying them for the Champions League, seven times. In the last five seasons, they have been in the top three, winning La Liga in 2014. Atlético also won the Copa del Rey in 2013 and have reached at least the quarterfinals of the Champions League every year for the last four years, including reaching the final in 2014 and 2016.

Even in the three seasons in which Atlético did not finish in the top four, they won the Europa League in two of them. The only season that Atlético have had over the last 10 years that could be quantified as a failure was their 2010-11 campaign, when they were seventh in the league and knocked out early in the Europa League.

That’s not even the most amazing aspect of Atlético’s success.

Look at these names who have left Atlético over that time period.

Fernando Torres. Sergio Agüero. Diego Forlán. Radamel Falcao. Diego Costa. Thibaut Courtois. Maxi Rodríguez.

Not only have they survived all these departures, they have thrived in the face of them – a testament to the club’s grit and resolve.

Furthermore, Atlético Madrid have the best front office and development team of any club in the world.

It’s not even close.

When Courtois left, Atlético replaced him with Jan Oblak, a 21-year-old who had played just 94 career professional league matches, none coming in one of the leading European leagues.

Four years later, Oblak has become arguably the world’s best goalkeeper.

Before Diego Costa played his first match for Atlético, he had been loaned out four times and scored 29 career league goals in 112 appearances.

Atlético turned him into a world-class centre-forward.

Atlético are also one of the world’s best teams when it comes to spotting young talent.

Here are the ages that some of Atlético’s current starting 11 were when they made their debuts for the club.

Saúl Ñiguez: 18. Oblak: 21. Antoine Griezmann: 23. Koke: 17. Correa: 20. Gabi: 20.

All six are major contributors for Atlético right now.

Even though they have always been in the shadow of their city rivals Real, when it comes to achieving results in the face of adversity, Atlético are lightyears ahead of the rest of Europe, and truly a model club for all others.

All of this, combined with their lack of public recognition, make Atlético the most underappreciated, disrespected football club in the world.