Football is also a business, and let s talk about the grievances between Mourinho and Levy

Mondo Culture Updated on 2024-02-01

'We reached the Carabao Cup final but he [Levy] sacked me before ...... final”

This is Mourinho's uneasy feeling when he left Tottenham dismally, and it has become a knot that Mourinho will be difficult to let go of for a long time after that.

This is also a ...... of the past that is still a little embarrassing to talk about

In November 2019, when Tottenham chairman Levy suddenly announced that Jose Mourinho would become the new head coach of Tottenham, I believe that the vast majority of people were not optimistic about this unexpected combination of the two sides

One is the decorated iron-blooded manager, although for some unspeakable reason, he met the first Waterloo of his coaching career at Manchester United; One is the "Grande" that the football world talks about, but it has single-handedly brought Tottenham to the level of the Premier League's big six.

It seems that two people get together and there is a little bit of a mismatch, but maybe many people don't see it, for both sides, this is actually a rare opportunity and challenge, because both of them are doers and careerists.

Although Levy "picked" his name, the most talked about is the "Modric 5 jerseys" incident - when Modric was still an ignorant teenager, the parent team Dinamo Zagreb asked Levy for 5 jerseys after Modric's transfer to Tottenham as a commemoration, however, the fee was counted in the transfer fee by Levy and deducted.

In addition, Tottenham's long-term "child labor" contract - signing long-term contracts with young players with low salaries ranging from 5 to 8 years, on the one hand, can control the team's expenditure costs; On the one hand, when a player transfers in the future, he can sit on the ground and ask for a high transfer fee.

Levy's Tottenham team, so to speak, counts every penny and every employee to the bones.

However, Levy's "shrewdness" is by no means useless, and it can even be said that it has had an immeasurable impact on the continued development of Tottenham, from the previous Modric, Bale, to Kane, and several famous stars who went out from Tottenham, every transfer transaction has made Tottenham make a lot of money, of course, Kane's transfer happened long after Mourinho left Tottenham.

At the beginning, Tottenham's business model was probably like this - on the one hand, they developed obscenely, sought survival, tried to develop, and tried every means to survive in the Premier League; On the one hand, it has become a star processing factory, striving to generate income for the team and seek greater development space.

Of course, this is the usual model used by all small and medium-sized clubs, and there is nothing to boast about, but there is one careful thought by Levy that deserves to be remembered - trying not to sell established players to members of the Premier League, especially direct competitors who pose a threat to Tottenham.

After many years of cautious and painstaking management, Levy's business strategy finally ushered in an outbreak under the hands of the young coach - Pochettino, Pochettino's Tottenham, bloody, passionate, often good deeds, not only ranked among the top 4 in the Premier League year after year, became a frequent visitor to the Champions League, but also in the 2018-2019 season, historic Champions League final.

However, Tottenham's surprise put Levy at the crossroads of "how should Tottenham's future go", originally just wanted to get a lot of broadcast income through the European war to subsidize his family, but he didn't expect to live a grassroots legend in the eyes of others.

Levy's heart is alive because of this, and the new White Hart Lane stadium, which has just been built for Tottenham, has been completed, so why not strike while the iron is hot and do a big job?

It's a pity that Levy, who was used to living a frugal life, may not have the experience to make the club leapfrog into a great club at that time, and Levy still showed an ugly face when the team's meritorious people asked for a salary increase, which caused the midfield brain Eriksen to be depressed, and his mind was gradually off the field.

However, on the other hand, it is puzzling that Levy spent an unprecedented £55 million to bring in Ndombele from Ligue 1 Lyon, and gave the team a maximum salary of £200,000 a week, compared to Eriksen, who has a weekly salary of less than £100,000, which is simply not too luxurious.

Coupled with the team's continuous battles, people are tired, that season, Pochettino has never been able to solve Tottenham's problems at both offensive and defensive ends, 12 rounds, last season's Champions League runner-up, only 3 wins, 5 draws and 4 losses, got 14 points, only ranked 14th in the Premier League.

So, Levy personally drove away Pochettino, the meritorious manager of Tottenham Hotspur who had promised never to turn his back, and coaxed Mourinho, who was obsessed with studying "what is OK's club structure".

I suspect that at Tottenham's new White Hart Lane stadium, Levy must have been dancing to Mourinho with this grand picture: "Look, this is our stadium ......There, there's our training base......Together, we will build a great club and create a new ......”

Hearing this, Mourinho's mind also began to liven, yes, to create a new era, isn't Lao Tzu born to do this? ...... at Chelsea, at InterAll along, what we have been doing is to make an unprecedented living. This vote was taken ......

In this way, we saw this pair of "special" bigwigs that surprised almost everyone - "special one" plus "special one".

Of course, I have no doubt that Levy is an ambitious and ambitious club president, and after Tottenham finished the Champions League and the White Hart Lane stadium was completed, Levy planned to shoot a documentary for Tottenham, but due to the unexpected hiring of Mourinho to coach, the name of the documentary changed - "all or nothing", Chinese translated as "All or Nothing".

It can be seen that Levy sees the hiring of Jose Mourinho as a big gamble in his life, and whether Tottenham can become one of the top giants is a move in this move.

However, Levy overestimated the expectations of Tottenham's future market prospects after Mourinho's arrival, and the sudden epidemic disrupted the business promotion layout carefully designed by shrewd Jewish businessmen, and the long-term closure of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium cut off the club's revenue that was expected to increase significantly, and Mourinho's commercial value was difficult to play in the global economic depression.

Mourinho underestimated the speed of Tottenham's decline, it seems that Mourinho took over a set of Champions League runners-up team, but Tottenham midfielder Eriksen left the team with an iron heart, and transferred to Inter Milan in the winter window; The team's defensive backbone, Belgium's two humming two generals, Vertonghen and Alderweireld, have all experienced varying degrees of cliff decline; After the major injury of the number one center Kane, his physical function has also declined significantly, and he can no longer squeeze into the ...... penalty area

So, after taking over Tottenham, Mourinho originally envisioned that he would have a good squad and a little tweaking, he could lead them to win the championship; In fact, it became how to save Private Kane? How can you save Ndombele and make the sky-high transfer fee look worth the money? How to make up for Tottenham's broken backline, so that Dier, who is already a little weak in the midfield position, can change to a new job and become a "Super Saiyan"? ...

Even in such a difficult situation, Mourinho's transformation of Tottenham is also fruitful, Kane's offensive efficiency has declined, Mourinho simply let Kane, who has good passes, retreat as a pseudo-No. 10, playing the role of a bridgehead, Son Xingmin uses speed to go straight behind the opponent, Sun Kai connected, and for a while the major opponents were terrified, but it is a pity that neither Bergwijn nor Lucas Jr. can take on the other side of the attack, Tottenham's bilateral tactics are lame.

Ndombele was pushed to the middle of the three midfielders in this era when players in the traditional No. 10 position were scarce, and more free space for movement, which also allowed the French stars with parallel hats to gradually find their own rhythm, Mourinho successfully saved most of Ndombele for Tottenham, but the French only had 60 minutes of physical strength, I am afraid that Jesus will be resurrected, and it will be difficult to save him.

As for Dier, he is a good boy, he works very the field, but he is a little prone to hypoxia, but Mourinho can only rely on Dier in the case of "no big general in Shu", so we saw Mourinho, who is the best at adjusting defense, and Tottenham under his rule often starts a long journey with 0-1 heavenly remnants.

That season, Tottenham had an exciting 6-1 sweep of Manchester United, and there was also a famous scene where Manchester City was in full swing, and the strong dialogue was impressive, but as we said before, as the schedule progressed, Tottenham Hotspur has always been lame with an asymmetrical lineup, and the midfield brain only has 60 minutes of physical strength, and the 0-1 attribute of the heavenly remnant starts ......One problem after another that Mourinho was never able to solve eventually turned into a big problem - Tottenham dropped points one after another.

On the other hand, the impact of the long-term epidemic on Tottenham is far beyond Levy's imagination, and Tottenham has accelerated the speed of running to a well-off life, which has to slow down, and all the promises made to Mourinho are difficult to fulfill.

To add insult to injury, Levi's heart is sharp, and Ali, a genius boy who was once worth 100 million pounds in the German transfer market, was once upon a time regarded by Levi as a treasure, and he actually opened the "hurt Zhongyong" mode. This was the most painful thing for Levy, a strange business, and it came to naught. After thinking about it, the desperate bet had to be stopped.

Later, we probably know that Levy urgently convened the board of directors, and the topic was probably "The Reasonableness and Necessity of Firing Mourinho", since the results cannot be further improved, for whatever reason, the top priority is to find a scapegoat, and no longer let the player be excessively ** in the public eye.

Alas, many things in this world are sometimes so wonderful, if there is no epidemic and everything develops step by step, when Levy can make a lot of money on the one hand, and on the other hand, he has enough transfer budget to support Mourinho; Or is Mourinho a few years earlier at Tottenham, when Tottenham's backline is still in its prime, and there is also Dembele in the midfield, Mourinho's favorite practical jack-of-all-trades player, Levy and Mourinho, can they really write a good story?

But if it's just if, I only know that when things don't go in the direction of expectations, from the perspective of running the club, Levy actually made the best choice, although I didn't know much about it at the time, and Mourinho has not been able to let go, but Mourinho has never been able to let go, but Mourinho has said later - he doesn't hold a grudge against Levy, modern football is a competition on the surface, but it is actually a business!

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