Chelsea, Jose Mourinho, and the Triumph of Boredom

We know José Mourinho is a genius because it took him less than two years to construct his gilded palace of unpleasantness in West London. Chelsea won the Premier League title on Saturday, to the dismay of anyone not already inclined by rooting loyalties to be excited about it. Unlike Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona teams or Arsenal’s Invincibles, Chelsea can lay claim to a title, but not anything close to universal popularity.

Mourinho is wholly unconcerned with that second thing. His artistic trademark is not giving a fuck about art. He’s soccer’s Michael Bay, a man with a bright but maybe somewhat crude vision; his proof of concept is the scoreboard. After a dour scoreless draw against Arsenal in late April, Mourinho said: “For me, the beautiful game is to go to every game and know exactly the way you have to play and what you have to do. At Arsenal, we were brilliant.” If he didn’t have such an adept tactical mind, he would be working in a government building in Lisbon, stamping forms and marvelling at the majesty of laws in motion. Or he’d be a math professor in Coimbra, whistling to himself as he scribbled out proofs on a whiteboard. The man likes functionality; it is his obsession.

Read More: The Death Of Drama In The Bundesliga

In a sport defined as much by teams that have played prettily as ones that dominated, Mourinho is a heretic. The perception that he’s a loathsome, entitled prince has more than a little to do with his acidic, paranoid press conferences—to hear Mou tell it, his back is nothing but knife wounds. But his grim pragmatism contributes to his unlikability just as much.

The chants from opposing crowds have been loud and regular for a while now: boring, boring Chelsea, and the conversation that has engulfed the club’s first title since 2010 is whether they are indeed drowsiness-inducing. The point-counterpoint on this is pretty rote stuff. One argument posits I mean, just look at them and the other cites goal-scoring stats and some midseason injuries to Chelsea’s front line. Neither is particularly convincing because taste is taste, and, yes, there is beauty in a well-organized defense and, sure, equating bunches of goals with aesthetic charm is like measuring the quality of a meal solely in calories. As with anything that’s wildly successful, you can see what you want in Chelsea. Myself, I’ve got a thing for Diego Costa’s sledgehammering ragefulness. I know I’m in the minority there.

Jose Mourinho, seen here fantasizing about an especially well-done PowerPoint presentation. — Photo by Jason O. Watson-USA TODAY Sports

And anyway, a team so talented can’t truly be boring. It’s a delight to see Cesc Fàbregas and Eden Hazard with the ball at their feet, whether they’re relatively unsupported in attack or otherwise. The appeal of players as good as they are lies in what they actually do—a dribble or pass that erases the defense all at once—and also the ever-present possibility of what they might. Mourinho can claim with a straight face that Chelsea matches haven’t been monotonous at all over the past couple months because he’s a weirdo who looks at a well-structured parking lot and sees a field of flowers.

But on the other side the spectrum, even the most fervent Chelsea detractors would have to admit the Blues’ games have been constantly illuminated, if sometimes quite faintly, by Cesc and Hazard, and the attendant chance, each time a pass rolled to either of them, that they would make the sort of play that triggers a little meteor shower in your brain. Players like that are always fun to watch, even when they’re not doing anything, or even when they’re constrained by arch-conservative tactics.

This act of constraint is Mourinho’s sin, if he has committed one at all. His team could be so much more, but all he requires is that they be enough. The full potential of what Chelsea’s roster can produce in terms of joy will never be realized under Mou because that’s not the game he’s playing. He is always thinking title, title, title—he’s more neurotic than he lets on—and now he has another one to add to his longish list.

Next year, Chelsea will buy a couple more stars and shoot for the Champions League trophy, in addition to trying to repeat as EPL winners. What’s frustrating about Mourinho, and by extension every squad he manages, is that he will do whatever it takes to reach that aim, and only that. Why be more adventurous or creative than you absolutely have to be? Mou believes that’s a rhetorical question, and that explains him perfectly.