Rowdy Mourinho too crude to fathom Wenger's poetry

Mourinho has always been vocal in his criticism of Wenger

A lot of water has flown through the Thames since a mercenary sought to malign his bounteous neighbour. But think as one may, it is a slight that only gets harder to swallow with each passing day. One man travels the world seeking espousal like an ungrateful orphan who refuses to be satiated by the shelter he receives. Another is a man who has made home and peace in the serenity of a club that serves to provide the pristine canvas needed for his classy work.

The unseemly exchange between Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger has the scent of a battle between Machiavelli and a mystic. The former neither has the nous to appreciate the learned diction of his rival nor the desire to do so. Mourinho is happy to be defined by the contours of the trophies that decorate his overflowing cabinet. He is happy and eager too to play a calculated plot on and off the field to further his quest for another shred of silver.

In contrast, Wenger is a deep thinker of the game who has preferred to invest his energies on creative football that soothes the soul. Admittedly, it hasn’t brought Arsenal much metal, but then Wenger cares so much more about turning his players into sculptors that carve out a lasting tribute to their craft. And remember too that Arsenal won the Premier League in 2003-04 without so much as losing a game.

Football is far more than a mere game, it is an eloquent expression of joy and pain flowing from the strained sinews of jousting artists painting their nuanced work with nimble feet and a steady head. In many ways the greatest game on the planet is an aerobic flow of poetic verses that reflect the glorious possibilities from practiced human endeavour. These are the values that Arsenal embrace under the stewardship of Wenger.

Mourinho can only betray himself when he tries to deflect the adjective of failure off his chest and rub it in on the nose of Wenger. The Portuguese has travelled from Portugal to London, before turning his attentions on Italy and then Spain before returning to London. It was a lusty journey that has taken Mourinho just a little more than a decade. Never lasting more than three years at a time, “the special one” needed to win trophies to justify his cantankerous manners.

Unlike Wenger, Mourinho has often been thrown a thick wad of embroidered cheques to hire his way to success. Chelsea and Real Madrid have both cushioned the boisterous man with deep pockets only asking that he deliver some silver in return. No wonder then that Mourinho dreads failure to win trophies for he is more accountable to his moneyed bosses than he is to the game of football.

Wenger operates in a different universe. There is no denying the fact that it pains every Arsenal fan not to have won a trophy since that memorable May night inside the Millenium stadium at Cardiff. Arsenal won the FA Cup that night in 2005, when they held Manchester United to a goalless draw in regulation time before stealing victory, 5-4 on penalties.

The Frenchman has been Arsenal manager since 1996, eighteen long years at a club where in Mourinho’s eyes he has flirted mostly with failure. But then for a man who has been largely responsible for one of the finest football homes in England and a rare set of balanced books for a football club, Wenger is too rich and diverse in experience to measure himself in the cruel shades of numbers.

Just for the record – even as Mourinho has floated through seven clubs in four countries from the start of this millenium, Wenger embroidered himself into the rich cultural tapestry of one of the most loved clubs not just in London, but in all of Premier League football. Wenger has managed as many as 1,429 games – nearly a thousand of these games for Arsenal (993) with a win percentage of about 54%.

Mourinho obviously has been far more successful on his own merit and metrics, having won at least a trophy every year between 2003 and 2012. A win rate of nearly 68% over the course of some 674 games is nothing to scoff at. But then as Alan Hansen, the former Scottish player and footbal pundit once said, Arsenal are “quite simply the most fluid, devastating team that the British Isles has seen.” No other club,” he said, “played the kind of exciting, attacking football in England,” that Arsenal play.

Wenger will find his peace in such critical acclaim, for he is a purist who is passionately in love with the game that defines his very life. He has no reason to fear failure or specialise in it, as Mourinho might suggest. Instead it is Mourinho who will do well to heed the philosophical wisdom of his neighbour to elevate himself from the trenches of vilifying vibes. Perhaps, as Wenger suggests, it is a fear of failure that pushes Mourinho into sporadic bouts of diabolical diatribe.

Just as well that Wenger has a way with words – he is fluent in French, German and English but also speaks Italian, Spanish and Japanese. Mourinho can literally pick his preferred language and the affable Frenchman could help the zealot understand the fact that success is not always defined by silver. The arrogance of Mourinho is often a tool to mask his ignorance of the heritage and grandeur of the very game he teaches his moneybags. Surely, Jose Mourinho could use a bit of education.

After all football isn’t just about winning league titles; at least not so much as it is a way of life for the thousands that play the game and the myriad millions that relish its aesthetic artistry.