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| | Saturday 27 September, 2008 | | Blog: Mou v the media | | Jose Mourinho complains the Italian media is obsessed with controversy, but Susy Campanale points out he’s hardly one to talk |  |  | | For anyone who has seen the hours of television coverage given to football in Italy, complete with super-up-close-digitised replays and shouting heads who make the Big Brother contestants look erudite, will know it’s hard to disagree with Jose Mourinho’s assertion.
Yes, the media is obsessed with the tiny, petty things and will analyse every minor detail to death before analysing the analysis on a show the next day. We are fortunate there are games every three days, otherwise the dissection of one match would go on for the whole week.
Having said that, he’s got a bit of a nerve complaining about the media focusing on controversy, hasn’t he? We are talking about the same Mourinho who delights in provoking opponents, insulting high-ranking figures and metaphorically spitting upon the smaller sides. If anyone is a master of media manipulation and trouble-making, it’s the Inter Coach. This is like Paris Hilton crying about a lack of privacy.
Poor Jose seems to have met his match, though. While in England the objects of his scorn would simply shrug their shoulders and make a sly remark about arrogance, in Italy they like to reply in no uncertain terms. I doubt any Premier League general manager would have said “He needs a smack in the mouth” – although the literal translation of the phrase used by Catania chief Pietro Lo Monaco was “He should be hit repeatedly in the teeth with a metal bar.”
Mourinho can stop moaning about media pettiness when he has finished stirring up controversy with that insufferably smug look on his face. Even today he responded to Ranieri’s suggestion not turning up to a post-match Press conference showed “a lack of respect” for the journalists by deriding the former Chelsea Coach’s grasp of the English language. “I studied Italian five hours a day for many months to ensure I could communicate with the players, media and fans. Ranieri had been in England for five years and still struggled to say ‘good morning’ and ‘good afternoon.’ Who is he to tell me what to do?”
That won’t hit any headlines or prompt questions about respect and arrogance, will it? If Mourinho wants us all to focus on the football, he might want to zip it and try to get Inter playing something other than simple counter-attacks.
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Wow Susy, congratulations on writing the most biased anti-Inter blog I have seen. Well done, your lack of professionalism clearly shows through your writing. A point that would have needed to be made with respect to the topic you are discussing is that Mourinho has in fact been at the receiving end of all the controversies, and not the instigator. Ranieri, Lo Monaco and now the Lecce boss all instigated the conflicts against him with tasteless comments, and he defended himself and his character as anyone would. However, you clearly decided to leave that minor detail out.
Second, you enjoyed in your last sentence taking a jab at Inter's style of play. The reality is Mourinho and Inter are the only squad in Italy to attempt for all 90 minutes to play with three forwards up front, two legitimate strikers(Zlatan/Adriano or Balotelli/Cruz/Crespo) and a quasi midfielder/striker (Mancini, Quaresma). What again you decide to omit from the equation is that other teams, as Lecce proved last week, are more interested in putting 8 men in the box against Inter, making a beautiful flowing offence with plenty of goals more difficult to attain. The reality is when they did on the odd occasion send more up, such as on set plays, Inter did counter and did so in excellent form, something I did not know was criticized. However, I guess when you have an absolute bias against a squad you would fail to recognize anything good.
Madj
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