Ahead of the release of Amazon’s latest documentary All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur, i looks at some of the biggest bombshells to have come out of the early episodes…
Levy’s deal to replace Pochettino with Mourinho had been a long time coming
“We did well to keep it quiet, didn’t we?” That is what one of Jose Mourinho’s legal team says early in the first episode of the fly-on-the-wall documentary All or Nothing, as Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy is seen signing the “45-page book” which forms the club’s £15m-a-year contract with their new manager.
Levy has just sacked his most successful coach, Mauricio Pochettino, whose belongings are shown being collected in boxes by club staff as his office at the training ground is emptied.
In a rare interview with the normally private Levy, he says that Mourinho is among the top two managers in world football, implying that he had no doubt who he should appoint following a poor start to the season despite his many controversies, but the Spurs chairman admits to the “heartache” of sacking Pochettino.
“My heart was telling me don’t do it and my brain was telling me I needed to do it,” he says. “It the most emotional decision I’ve ever had to make. It was more than just an employer-employee relationship. We went away together, we had a lot of fun times outside the club. I’m sure after a little while maybe we’ll continue doing that. I think at the moment things are a little bit raw which is understandable – mixed emotions. It’s not a nice experience for either of us.”
Little is seen of Pochettino prior to his demise. He is reported to have been against the Amazon cameras being allowed into the training ground or stadium under his reign. Besides footage from press conferences, there is just a single interview with him, in which he spins a football in his hands wistfully and says: “If a house falls down, everyone sees it fall. But you have to anticipate that the house is going to fall.” He then insists: “We are talking in general, we are not talking about Tottenham.” But it’s hard not to think that, deep down, Pochettino knows his time will soon be up.
Mourinho is the star of the show – and when the cameras follow his silver head from behind as he walks into the training ground for the first time, it’s like cinema viewers are being introduced to the new James Bond. In the course of the series, Levy is seen discussing team selection, tactics and contracts with his new manager.
Mourinho decided on his very first day that the players were too soft
Discussing the Tottenham squad in the manager’s office soon after they have arrived, Mourinho’s assistant João Sacramento tells his boss in Portuguese: “One of the things that caught my attention was they say that Sissoko has great influence in the dressing room.” Mourinho is shocked, swearing in Portuguese; it appears that Moussa Sissoko, a tenacious midfielder but a laid-back personality off the pitch, is not his idea of a leader.
“What I’ve been gathering basically is that it’s a team that is too nice,” Mourinho tells Sacramento. “Even in competition they are too nice. Nice boys. They say Dier is the only guy who likes living the conflict during the game.”
The trailer for All or Nothing has already shown Mourinho telling the players that they have to be “bastards” and “intelligent c__ts” on the pitch to win games, but watching the series it soon becomes clear just how central this attitude is to Mourinho’s regime at Spurs, as he tries to make the players more aggressive, more uncompromising, arguably more cynical on the pitch.
Walking off the training pitch at one point, he tells the squad: “There must be something wrong with this team, because I’ve played against you so many times and nobody insulted me – in the tunnel or nothing, man.”
Mourinho loves to swear – and is brutally honest with his players
Before their Champions League group game with Olympiacos, Mourinho turns to right-back Serge Aurier while he is addressing the team in the dressing room about defending set pieces. “Serge, you are going to be one of the markers,” says the manager. “I am afraid of you as a marker, because you are capable of doing a s__t penalty with VAR. So I am telling already that I am afraid of you.” Aurier looks like he’s been slapped in the face and can’t quite believe what his own coach has just told him, but many Spurs fans would agree with this assessment of a player who is dynamic in attack but too often rash in defence.
If it’s any consolation for Aurier, many of his teammates suffer from similar drive-by attacks of plain speaking and indignity. At the training ground, after twice asking left-back Ben Davies, “You have balls?”, the manager turns to centre-back Davinson Sanchez, who lost against Mourinho’s Manchester United side in the Europa League final of 2017. The manager tells the defender, “You s__t yourself”, adding: “I won the game, minute one.”
Mourinho swears in almost every scene. He swears when he’s playing with the team in training, saying: “F_____g hell, man – I’m in good form.” He swears when a pundit on Sky Sports News questions his ability, saying “f__k off” as he hits the TV switch. He swears about Aurier’s beard, asking: “What the f__k is that?” He swears when the team score against West Ham, saying: “Goal, there you f_____g go.” And he swears in his team talks, telling the team at half time at the London Stadium that “this s__t is not over”, and: “You are not going to a concede a goal from a f_____g set piece.”
We don’t get to see any dressing room team talks under Pochettino, so we cannot compare how things changed for the team, but when Harry Kane delivers a captain’s speech to the circle of players before playing Olympiacos and tells the team to “f_____g kill them”, you have to wonder if Mourinho’s language is influencing the England striker.
Alli frustrates Mourinho with his ‘lazy’ attitude to training
In their first day training together, Mourinho approaches Dele Alli and tells him that he’s “f_____g lazy”. When Levy casually pops by Mourinho’s office at the end of day one, the manager tells the chairman: “I told already Dele very, very directly. He doesn’t train well.” In a squad meeting reviewing footage from a previous game where a pass goes astray, Mourinho asks “Where is Dele?” and the then tells him: “I understood already that you are a f_____g lazy guy in training… But lazy pass.” The tone is playful, yet the message is serious, about a player who Mourinho says Sir Alex Ferguson wanted him to sign for Manchester United.
Early in his tenure at Spurs, Mourinho spoke publicly about joking with Alli that he could not tell whether it was him or his brother who was playing for Spurs, because he had been out of form – but we see here that in reality the criticism was far sharper.
They then have a one-on-one meeting in Mourinho’s office, where the manager makes it clear that his verbal prodding is borne of admiration and a desire for him to improve. “I like you as a player and I like you also as a kid,” he tells Alli. “I have to tell you always what I think. Inside of you, maybe you tell me to f__k off, but I have to tell you exactly what I think.” Alli has become an enigma in the past two years, and again many Spurs fans would agree with what the manager has to say.
Mourinho explains: “I have no doubts about your potential. I saw you do incredible matches and incredible things, but I always felt that you had ups and downs.” He asks Alli to work out what is stopping him being a consistently great player, whether it a lifestyle as a “party boy” or any other factors, saying: “You should demand more from you.” He adds: “I think one day, I think you do regret if you do not reach what you can reach.”
Mourinho holds similar one-on-one meetings with Harry Kane (who comes across as a teacher’s pet), saying he can help the striker in his desire to reach the levels of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, and with Eric Dier, who chats in Portuguese about how difficult it was to get back in Pochettino’s team following injuries.
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