Would it hurt Mourinho at least to fake being polite?
José Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, began the Christmas season by omitting to shake the hand of Paul Jewell, the manager of Wigan Athletic. This serial handshake-omitter said afterwards that he had more important things to do. The Mourinho no-handshake story is getting to be a bore. Soon we will be making headlines about the rare occasion he does actually extend a hand (no doubt curing King’s Evil as he does so) to an opponent. Common courtesies are not intended, it seems, for such soaring minds as Mourinho’s. They are suitable, perhaps even necessary, for common folk, but Mourinho is far above such things. That is all part of his mystique, of course, his determined projection of his own persona, part of the way he seeks to intimidate. But I am getting increasingly irritated at his belief that ordinary good manners are irrelevant to himself and unimportant in sport. You could argue that sport is oppositional and that the people you oppose are your enemies. Courtesy towards them would b
