The look on his face says it all. The London Sun has the whole story and a video.
Posts Tagged ‘Jose Mourinho’
Why I Love Jose Mourinho
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009Special 1 TV Debuts This Weekend On Setanta
Friday, January 30th, 2009
Wow…I’m just finding this out.
Coolsite EPL Talk has been thoroughly covering the Setanta Channel’s new show, Special 1 TV, which debuts this weekend and appears to be a retooling of its old show I’m On Setanta Sports. EPL Talk’s most recent story as of this post is here along with links to four related articles.
Setanta is the Irish equivalent of America’s ESPN, offering multiple sports channels in its home country while offering only one in the US. In the US, it’s available through Dish Network, DIRECTV, VerizonFIOS, some hard line cable companies and broadband for about USD $15 a month. If you have both Setanta and the Fox Soccer Channel, you’re pretty much guaranteed access to all of the English Premier League games, although some may be occasionally time-delayed.
About a year ago, they started airing a five minute comedy snippet, I’m On Setanta Sports, centered around current Inter Milan manager Jose Mourinho and his boisterous, hilarious personality. Utilizing puppets, it also made fun of Mexico team coach Sven-Göran Eriksson, Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney and England team coach Fabio Capello. Every week, the show parodied current events in football…think of IOSS as a low key Daily Show.
You’ve gotta love football to subscribe to Setanta and you’ve REALLY gotta love it in order to get all the inside jokes on I’m On Setanta Sports. But if you want a preview, below is one of its earlier episodes courtesy of YouTube (might be the first one). You can also view this episode on its YouTube page if you want to see related clips.
And to demonstrate how funny Mourinho is, and continuing in my love for omnipresent footie personalities like I did for Ray Hudson, here’s a GREAT Mourhino highlight clip from his time at Chelsea. Here’s its YouTube page, also with related clips.
Stoke City Boss: Foreign Ownership Of Football Clubs Sucks
Thursday, January 29th, 2009Stoke City boss Tony Pulis tells the BBC that foreign ownership of English Premier League clubs is wrong, taking direct aim at Roman Abramovich and the Abu Dhabi United group, owners of Chelsea and Manchester City, respectively. He feels that the current crop of foreign owners don’t understand the history club footie and that he would much happier if EPL clubs were owned by those from within their respective communities.
I’m in no way coming to his defense here but while he may be acting protectionist, I see no evidence of racism in his statement. Some of his potshots are directed at Abramovich, who just happens to have white skin.
Also, and quite curiously, he didn’t mention either Manchester United owner Malcom Glazer or Liverpool co-owners Tom Hicks & George N. Gillett Jr., all whom are American and have received a boatload of criticism for not being English. Hicks and Gillett especially.
Pulis is expressing a common sentiment held by many traditional football fans, particularly English ones. I’ve said this before but in my footie learning process, I’ve found that old school fans have HUGE issues with Non-British ownership. It’s a direct result of football’s gentrification, and the gentrification as a whole ticks off the old timers to no end. And in reviewing some past instances, Pulis may have a point. An example of an instance is Roman Abramovich’s constant bumping of heads with then-Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho over team signings and playing styles. The conflict got to be so big (and in all fairness, Jose needs to take the blame for some of the conflict), that Roman eventually had to give Jose the axe.
All of this been said, it cannot be denied that the money brought in by these foreign owners (particularly Abramovich) has helped all of these clubs. And while we’ve yet to see this money yield many results at both Stoke and Man City, all the others have done well with the cash.
Jose Mourinho Says Liverpool Can Win The EPL Title…Where’s Steven Cohen?!?!?!?!
Monday, January 26th, 2009
Got this from the Give Me Football blog (a potential Coolsite) who got it from the Sunday’s London Telegraph.
Current Inter Milan Skipper and walking Armani ad Jose Mourning says that Northern England footie powerhouse Liverpool can take the the English Premier League trophy this year. Now, he did NOT say that they will absolutely, without a doubt win it, but that “they have everything they need to win the title.” A little CYA on the Special One’s part if you ask me.
First of all, I wholeheartedly disagree with this. As I said in a previous post, Sir Alex Ferguson has created a mechanism over at Manchester United that makes the club pretty much unbeatable. That may all change next year but for now, the 2008/09 EPL title is Man U’s to lose.
And why did I mention Steven Cohen in the title? Well as most football fans know, Steve is a leading footie pundit that co-hosts and co-owns the World Soccer Daily radio show and co-hosts the Fox Football Fone-in call-in TV show on Fox Soccer Channel. Not only is he an avid supporter of Chelsea but he’s an avid hater of Liverpool, but of the fans and not the team. For as long as I’ve been following Cohen, he’s been in a verbal back-and-forth with ‘Pool fans, call “scousers”, or, “thieves” (go here for an historical explanation of this reference). Liverpool fans, in turn have responded sometimes respectfully but many times ignorantly, making physical threats to him via phone and email and also throwing anti-semetic comments towards his faith.
And to make matters worse, Mourinho, who used to manage his beloved Chelsea, are now saying that Liverpool can win the title.
As of this post, I’m dialing into the WSD live stream on iTunes, wondering if he’ll talk about this. I’ll also be watching FFF tonight on Fox Soccer Channel and look for comments there.
Hull City…What I’ve Learned…
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008…and the answer is A LOT!!!
Let me start off by saying that I am THRILLED that my Chelsea Blues beat Hull on 29 October. I was, however, disappointed by their 1 November loss to Manchester United: partially because I wanted to see the underdogs win and partially because when one supports Chelsea, throwing a little dislike to the Red Devils is the default position.
But while watching these two games, I had my BEST footie knowledge experience to date.
The Chelsea game was a mess for the Tigers from start to finish. Geovanni and Daniel Cousin did what they could but the entire defense (Boaz Myhil included) acted as if they did a few bong hits prior to coming on to the pitch. They gave up a goal with in the first three minutes and allowed Nicholas Anelka a goal. I mean, I love my Blues but Anelka is not exactly a goal scoring machine. Chelsea takes the match 3-0…a bit of a surprise but not a disappointment on my part. Hull City then goes on to lose at Old Trafford three days later, but it was a completely different game. Hull lost to Man U 4-3 but not after getting three goals off of the Red Devils and forcing them to work to preserve their lead. Any team that forces Manchester United to work deserves props.
Now while none of these end results are surprising when you think about it, the Chelsea game deserves a little scrutinizing. See, Chelsea’s good right now, they’re just not that good. Regardless of Anelka’s performance, he’s no Didier Drogba and can be locked down without much effort. And Frank Lampard may be the most consistent scorer for Chelsea right now but is he scoring that much? Nope. Hull could’ve beaten Chelsea last Wednesday, but played as if they didn’t want to. But it was WHOOOOOOOLE different ball of wax against Man U. Hull faced a marquee team which contains three of the current top scorers (Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Dimatar Berbatov) and puts three goals on them. This was without question, United’s toughest win to date as Hull pushed them to the limits, forcing Rooney to try and score and making sure he was unsuccessful at every attempt. Either they blocked him or they forced him to take quick shots, but the belief that he was the man this season in the EPL was, for 90 minutes, shut down by the Hull Back Four. Hull earned the respect of many on 1 November, including Manchester United. Why? Because they walked out onto the pitch with the confidence that they could win!!!!
And therein lies the moral of this post: that I learned that confidence is a key characteristic of any winning team, and it’s a must that Hull corner the market on it since it’s what’s really winning them games right now. As an example, let’s take a look at Chelsea again, particularly during the 2007/08 season. When José Mourinho vacated the Chelsea managerial post in October 08, everyone wrote them off for the rest of the season. Yet they not only made the UEFA Champions League final that season but also made sure that the EPL Champions didn’t get confirmed until the last day of the season. That’s confidence and that’s one of the many reasons why my Blues support is unwavering.
I’ve said before that Hull has such confidence and still believe that they have it. They just need to be consistent with it, especially if they want to stay in the EPL.
Random News 8/11/08 (Setanta, Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Georgia Conflict)
Monday, August 11th, 2008I found this really great article which is a case study the inner workings of Setanta. It focuses on their deal with the SPL, which just got extended. This is an great read.
Blog/fansite RonaldoWORLD is reporting that Mirror is reporting that Alex Ferguson is going to hold a serious grudge against Real Madrid after their push to sign Cristiano Ronaldo. I went to the Mirror and couldn’t find it but here’s their post.
Speaking of Fergie, it’s now rumored that he’s going after Theirry Henry. If Henry knows his roll, Man U has the potential to be a cracking team this year.
Ah, Jose Mourinho. Great to have you back in the mix. The Special One claims that the current Arsenal squad is too young, thereby without enough experience to snag the league cup. He also thinks that Liverpool will take the top title this year.
Ghana moves up a spot in the FIFA rankings…GOOD FOR THEM!!!
The FA of Ireland has concerns about their upcoming qualifier in Georgia due to the current conflict over there, and rightly so.
Scolari pulls a Mourinho (sort of)
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008BBC Sport quotes him: "We have four competitions this season and I’ll try to win all four. It will be very difficult but we have the team for it, we have the players for it…"
Well, at least he didn’t say "will" as the Special One did.
Random News 8/5/08 (Rafael van der Vaart, Jose Mourinho, Best 11 African Players, LA Galaxy)
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008Hot with the bloggers yesterday was the news that Rafael van der Vaart left Hamburg for Real Madrid. This makes three Dutch Internationals to sign with the Spanish powerhouse (he joins Ruud van Nistelrooy and Wesley Sneijder). I expect a smooth transition into the team for Rafeal and am really to see how the team performs once Wesley recovers from his injury.
Past that, lots of cool stuff that I read on the blogs this morning:
As I stated yesterday, Inter Milan brought in Jose Mourinho to win the Champions League cup. Soccer Lens poses the question as to whether or not it’s possible. (Courtesy Soccer Lens)
Khalid Shakran over at Bleacher Report picked his Best 11 based on African players currently playing in Europe. I agree with it for the most part although I would reconsider switching the striker setup and put Dider Droba on the bench and Emmauel Adebayor start. Yes, I am a Chelsea fan and truthfully, it was Drogba that made me a Chelsea supporter after his performance in the ‘07 FA Cup, but the truth is that Adebayor had the better 07/08 season in the EPL.
Soccer by Ives pointed me to a GREAT story on SI.com covering the current drama happening with the LA Galaxy. Between losing their last six consecutive games, Landon Donavan wanting to play in England (See you at Fulham, buddy) and going all-in on David Beckham and not winning as much as expected, things are pretty rotten in the state of California.
Jose is at again
Monday, August 4th, 2008It was Jose v. Arsene. Now it’s Jose v. Claudio. According to the Special One, the former is a "voyeur" and the latter is "old and fruitless".