Thursday night and Gary Lineker tweets us to go home. BBC have something cooking on Pep and José.
Gabby Logan is standing there when the flat screen comes to life: “It’s a burning feud that ignited in Barcelona, simmered in Milan and enraged in Madrid. As Matthew Syed explains, it may be about to boil over in Manchester.”
Syed is on the Luas to Old Trafford: “Rivalry is central to the meaning of football but with Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho, two of the new breed of super manager, here in the same city, it has been taken to a new and intriguing level.
“Managers like to think themselves as personifications of the clubs they manage. It is perhaps for this reason that their rivalries can become so acutely personal.”
Clough smiling
Lovely montage. Clough smiling at Don Revie, “There’s no way you can win it better.” Kevin Keegan losing his shit with those big headphones on. José and Arsène, “I’m embarrassed for him, honestly”, and Rafa, “I’m talking about facts” and Fergie smirking, “Absolute nonsense.”
Syed walks into the Theatre of Dreams: “The history of football is punctuated with great ructions. These were not fabricated animosities, these were primal.
“Now, we have perhaps the most explosive...”
The most explosively fabricated animosity the game has ever seen is punctuated by José and Pep exchanging a cordial hug seconds before kick-off. Not that this behaviour will be allowed dim the narrative.
Syed: “...the most explosive rivalry of all: Two men [picture of lounging Barça maestro and Bobby Robson’s interpreter] who were once upon a time friends.”
Broth reheated and stirred as Pep’s rare reaction to José barbs before el clásico gets flung out: “In this room José is the f**king chief, the f**king boss.”
The connotation being press conferences are Mourinho’s domain but the pitch is where Guardiola reigns.
The managerial/media-created war ends up becoming a decent looking Madchester derby. Zlatan slices a wonderful goal but United are already 2-0 down.
Mourinho’s complaint about Rio Bravo is tame enough to ensure there will be wine. Pep is asked about risky un-English passing at the back.
“I’m sorry, I’m not going to negotiate that.”
A few hours later, over on Sky Box Office, and there’s Zlatan ringside in London to see Gennady Golovkin’s left hook fracture Kell Brook’s eye socket midway through the first.
Sky: “Golovkin’s head doesn’t move so he’s there to be hit.”
Brook punches his way into the fight despite seeing “five Triple G’s.”
He hits the G in the middle. Uppercut elicits nod of respect, and a vicious response.
A rotund “Prince” is roaring into his Sheffield stable mate’s corner as the Ingle brothers patch up their battered welterweight. Naseem Hamed has clearly taken to life at stud.
Round five: Dominic Ingle is up on the canvas helicoptering the towel as Golovkin pummels his half-blind fighter.
Ingle saves the man he’s known since childhood from this Kazakhstani machine. A grossly swollen Brook freaks at the referee, then Ingle.
Sky: “Enough is enough.”
Triple G: “He’s a huge fighter but, sorry, he’s not a middleweight. I respect him but, no, not so strong. I don’t feel his power.”
Protected
Golovkin’s trainer Abel Sanchez: “I’m happy the corner protected Kell ‘cause these guys aren’t going to quit.”
Brook: “You have to kill me in here.”
Crowd goes wild.
Same crowd boos when Dom Ingle finally clears his throat: “When you’re in with Golovkin, taking too many shots...”
He refuses to elaborate.
Hugging here was to momentarily escape Triple G’s hands of stone. No wine afterwards. Words get backed up with murderous intent.
The history of boxing is punctuated with great ructions. These are mostly fabricated animosities, when the bell sounds it is truly primal.
