Everything Under Control

When a man like Jorge Valdano speaks, you listen, because the Argentinian has the kind of cv that compels attention. In a distinguished career he won the World Cup and served Real Madrid as player, coach and sporting director, and he clearly has little time for Jose Mourinho and Raffa Benitez, both of whom he condemns as control freak coaches who are afraid of flair players.Valdano’s reservations are rooted in the fact that neither of the above succeeded as a player in the professional game – “they have two things in common: a previously denied, hitherto unsatisfied hunger for glory, and a desire to have everything under control. Both of those things stem from one key factor: neither Mourinho nor Benitez made it as a player. That has made them channel all their vanity into coaching. Those who do not have the talent to make it as players do not believe in the talent of players, they do not believe in the ability to improvise in order to win football matches. In short, Benitez and Mourinho are exactly the kind of coaches that Benitez and Mourinho would have needed to have made it as professional players.”

Benitez and Mourinho are very different characters, but there is no doubt that as managers they have much in common and Valdano’s comments about the need for absolute control, a mistrust of flair players and the expression of personal vanity through coaching ring true. What is less convincing is the implication that only those who have succeeded at the highest level as players would feel sufficiently confident and comfortable as coaches to build, and believe in, teams that produce exciting, imaginative, spontaneous football. That is an argument that can easily be refuted in just two words. Arsene Wenger.