- Jun 1, 2011
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Drunk or not, it's a good analogy, and one I've made myself before. Sport is effectively an upshot of War, take the Olympics, the vast majority of the original Olympic events were effectively War training (javelin, discus etc). Games like chess were devised as strategy training.When we talk about Mourinho, I would like to add something: I'm quite interested in war history and especially WW2. I think we can kind of compare war strategists with modern football managers in the way they have to plan a battle and come up with a smart strategy. And, when we look at great war strategists like e.g. Rommel, he had great trained and many huge regiments and highly up to date tanks and technology on his side. How many great and famous modern war strategists from WW2 have you all heard about from lets say Greece, Norway or Holland? Not many. Because they didn't have the disposal of great forces, men and technology at that time (not compared to Germany, UK, USA, Soviet Union, Japan etc.) , and without it they did not win a single battle (almost). And what's my point (yes, I am drunk)? Great football managers have great players and very often also great owners/boards and funds behind them. Without great players to disposal, it is quite impossible to make an impact on the very top top level in the best tournaments in the world, like PL an CL. And even though some of our players are developed in our academy more or less, it is still based on resources we have. Lets wait until Son and Kane are back and Mourinho has had another shopping window behind him before we judge. Next season. And if he still manages to bring us a new season with CL and maybe also a FA-cup trophy this season, with Dele, Bergwijn and Moura as the front attacking line, he really deserves credit. I still think Mourinho is a great strategists and modern football hasn't changed much since 2004 if we are talking about how the game is played (warfare has changed a lot since WW2 though..).
Obviously, sport as a whole has evolved well beyond this, but the core remains the same, devising strategy to gain an advantage, training of personnel to execute that strategy and communication to react to change.
The ones you missed though were belief and heart. If the belief and heart of the personnel wasn't in it, no strategy would work, so they're probably the first and foremost aspects to get right. No army ever won a War if the personnel didn't believe or have the heart to overcome adversity.
I believe JM knows this, it wouldn't surprise me if he could quote you excerpts from Tsung Su's Art of War!