It’s hard not having a real nemesis anymore. Jose Mourinho has done his best to discredit Chris Foy for the last few days, but without a real grasp of any shred of invented conspiracy he can conjure, those who enjoy seeing Mourinho run amock through the media in his attempts to convince the world he was robbed of three points might feel sorry for not having Barcelona in his life anymore.
Because Barcelona was perfect for a manager like Mourinho, who spends just as much time trying to influence teams, managers, players and officials through the media as he does actually preparing his team for matches. It’s hard to say how much the same players would do without him, because he himself has admitted time and time again he’ll only work for teams that allow him to sign the expensive players. He isn’t signing unknown and unproven names. He’s buying stars, or players on the verge of becoming such.
There’s no Alex Ferguson and Manchester United large figure to throw darts at. Be sure that if a Ferguson United were running to the title along with Mourinho, the friendship thing would be thrown out the window. It’s great to be all buddy-buddy like when there’s nothing at stake, or you see each other twice in two years. Mourinho hasn’t been as nice when seeing Moyes, Wenger, Pellegrini and Rodgers. For him, the most important thing is to target the enemy and take him down.
But there’s no great “evil“, even though Mourinho himself belongs to the dark side according to many. Barcelona were perfect for that during his first tenure at Chelsea and three years at Real Madrid, not forgetting one season with Inter. Every red card against him was because of the Barcelona conspiracy, the Unicef conspiracy, the UEFA conspiracy. Nothing of this was his own fault – not his own mistakes on the tactical level, not his way of defending violent players, like he’s doing now with Ramires.
Mourinho has a point about referees walking away from certain situations unscathed, as if they aren’t criticized by a governing body and can make all the mistakes in the world and still go unpunished. Refereeing and officiating is in a dire situation, especially with FAs and mostly FIFA not giving them the tools to handle situations correctly, while defending them blindly after the rest of the world saw them making a huge mistake.
But Mourinho once again is trying to throw mud and filth at anyone who didn’t bow down to his own drum. Ramires was sent off because of a violent foul, not because Chris Foy sent off Willian. This wasn’t the case of a referee allowing players to play uber-aggressively until it went too far. It was a player known for cheating from time to time, under a manager who defends cheaters and might be the biggest hypocrite in football, simply venting out his frustration for being on the losing side. If Foy is to blame for Ramires stomping on an Aston Villa player, than Mourinho is just as guilty as the referee he’s trying to tarnish.