Whether it’s a ball boy, a referee, a rival manager or even his own employers, Jose Mourinho has always needed an enemy – a source of injustice to rally against. Maybe it’s a consequence of his own personal psychology; it’s certainly true that, during his first Chelsea spell at least, Mourinho was at his irresistible, invincible and enigmatic best when his team were engrossed in a besieged mentality.
The rest of the world vilified Chelsea for pragmatic tactics and buying success, and that’s exactly how Mourinho liked it – the Portuguese inspiring his troops to keep the wolves at bay by barking orders from the back of the trenches and romantically swivelling his sword in the air.
But this trick isn’t exclusive to merely Mourinho’s own agenda or the world of football; nationalistic politics in countless countries across countless centuries have thrived from the idea a common enemy. It creates a single common goal, it collapses social cleavages for the sake of unity, it adds to the sense of a shared identity and most importantly of all, it provides someone to triumph against – a surmountable challenge that allows a legitimate claim of glory once conquered.
Often though, these enemies are nowhere near as powerful, aggressive or threatening as the politicians would have the public believe – after all, what’s the point in creating an enemy if you have no chance of actually beating them?
That’s why Mourinho’s focus has sharply shifted in recent months from Pep Guardiola to Antonio Conte. Perhaps there is a genuine sense of dislike between the pair, perhaps Mourinho struggles with the idea of another manager being successful at the club he’s most synonymous with – all the more, the club that sacked him amid the most turbulent, implosive season of the Roman Abramovich era.
But nonetheless, compared to his own and Manchester United’s more obvious, more traditional rivals – Guardiola and City – who are already champions in waiting and setting a new precedent of utter dominance in the Premier League, Chelsea and Conte at least represent a beatable foe.
Little will be gained from going to war with Guardiola in every press conference for the rest of the season when City win the title by a record margin at the end of May. In fact, it would be a completely embarrassing exercise.
And despite the apparent bad blood between the two, there is a manufactured feel to Mourinho’s swipes at his Chelsea successor. Previous Premier League management rivalries, including his own, have always been logical and arguably unavoidable.
Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson were never going to see eye-to-eye while competing for the title every season, and Mourinho’s foul-tempered feud with Wenger was a consequence of how the former changed the dynamics of the Premier League at the expense of the latter, especially tactically and in terms of finance, replacing him as the division’s new revolutionary force.
“What never happened to me – and will never happen – is to be suspended for match-fixing. That never happened to me and will never happen.”
Mourinho and Conte, though, have never really duelled for titles and silverware in the same way – in fact, they’ve only ever faced each other five times as managers. Regardless, whenever one has been questioned about the other this season, they’ve nearly always had a prepared answer to float in the media.
That’s especially in Mourinho’s case who, after seemingly alluding to Conte’s touchline antics, unexpectedly used his post-match interview after a routine FA Cup win over Derby County to raise the issue of the Chelsea gaffer’s chequered past – bringing up prior accusations into match-fixing.
The key word there is accusations; Conte was cleared of any wrongdoing, and Mourinho knew his remarks would create a heated reaction. They would turn a potential enemy into a willing one.
“In the past he was a little man in many circumstances, he’s a little man in the present and for sure he will be a little man in the future. I consider him a little man and I consider him a man with a very low profile.”
But Conte too, is no angel. He’s thrown mud back towards Old Trafford – criticising their summer spending, accusing Mourinho of ‘crying’ about injuries and even dubbing the Portuguese a ‘little man’ – and the truth is that he needs the rivalry as much as Mourinho.
During a season in which City have moved so far ahead of their domestic competitors, a hatred-fuelled feud gives Chelsea and Manchester United’s race for second place a much-needed sense of elevated purpose, something more than merly two also-rans battling it out for the slim financial gain of second over third.
In both camps, it provides a new source of motivation, one that the players might well find refreshing with not much left for them to play for in the top flight. In any case, it will keep Mourinho and Conte charged for the coming months.
In turn though, the manufactured feel and the terminology used leaves a nastily sour taste. This is the manager of one of the most illustrious clubs in the world, trading slanderous blows with the man who replaced him at his former club. While Mourinho and Conte may both need an enemy to create an engaging narrative that allows them to paint triumphing over the other as something more glorious than simply finishing a distant second to City, it has already proved an incredibly undignified process.
Neither manager will care too much about how the public perceives them, however; what will continue to drive this rivalry forward is the ruthless characteristic the feuding pair share – they’re both at-all-costs winners.
