This Rome exalts in suffering

In the meantime, a preliminary but essential consideration: everyone who has criticized Mourinho in recent months, not only the Cassanos on duty, but also everyone who focused on the Roma’s (non-)play to the Portuguese’s work Delegitimizing the coach should rethink his vision for football (and not only). Here we usually write that the players still go on the pitch and that is undeniable, but they are There are few cases where a technician manages to engrave so much on the head, the heart, the character and the maturity of a team. Very few and in their rarity exemplary cases.

Watching this Rome decimated by injuries but also weakened by a general athletic condition that borders on exhaustion (because alongside those absent there are always those present who haven’t rested for months and strain their muscles with every game). like a rope very taut and in danger of breaking every Sunday), in short, admire this Rome You enter another dimension of the “show”: not that of play, dominant and offensive, but that of suffering; the almost moving power of sacrifice.

A team that made its own sacrifice special brand of special despair, reserved according to De André for those who have taken a stubborn and opposite direction. What the Giallorossi also do in their own way: In the football of the Xabi Alonso, the Artetas, the Nagelsmanns, this Mourinhana is the old school that doesn’t go through; the men’s school before the footballers. Mourinho is the father, psychologist, coach and demiurge of this team. Over time and with the arrival of gray hair, he has adapted to a new phase in his career and to an unprecedented technical framework.

But Mourinho is not just a coach, he is an extraordinarily intelligent man. One of those who give the impression being able to be successful in whatever they doto have something special on a human level; Mourinho could be a political leader, a great businessman, a stockbroker, a lawyer or a doctor, and he would surely be successful anyway. A man with a hundred faces and a thousand masks, a magician and a mathematician, an extraordinary Machiavellian who knows how to dose moments and situations perfectly.

In this phase of his career, around his Rome and thanks to the warmth of the audience he always expresses, he has built a heroic dimension, capable of going well beyond the real values ​​of the field. Yes, because this team in suffering he finds energy, almost joy in pain. And in a pinch, last year he produced Zalewski, author of a great season and pivotal performances; and this year OxRoman and Romanist with a clean face who, against all odds and against all logic, decided the first leg of a Europa League semi-final last night.

“Bove is a boy with an extreme education, also intellectual and academic training, thanks to him and his parents.” I’ve done my job and helped him grow, but to be the boy he is, he has to have ita family of equals».

Jose Mourinho on Edoardo Bove

If you are looking for examples from the world of football, These are examples for the younger generation. Bove isn’t Wirtz, a boy gifted with talent who at 19 is already worth 100 million. But it’s not Miretti or Fagioli either. In fact, he is a player heart of rome and only grew up in the yellow-red spring, which showed deep boundaries earlier in the year for a competition like Serie A, let alone the European cups; Still, he’s an intelligent boy with a head and heart, with an excellent family and studies on his shoulders, who grew up with Mourinho with a strong will, training and dedication in an exponential, almost surreal way.

And here we come back to the point, because this Rome is reminiscent of the great teams that glorified themselves in sacrifice, that found new, unexpected resources by going deep and going further. Over 100%, Achieving 110, 120%, Overcoming the reserve, your own limits and the same football. When I saw some players fall to the ground at the three-whistle last night, it was almost like seeing Atlético Madrid’s 2014 version, which arrived at the end of the season exhausted and in a way marked by suffering.

The one who needed a pointlast game of the season La Liga at the Camp Nou against second-placed Barcelona,​​and who had to leave both Diego Costa and Arda Turan through injury (and in tears) after less than half an hour; The one who then went down in the score, and just when all seemed lost, first equalized with Godin (from a corner, and how else?) and then holed up in his own area in tragic ecstasy until the final whistle.

It’s something for men of little faith, headless and heartless, for football scholars who have never really played football, not to admire these teams and, in a way, this Rome. I think the show is all high pressing and offensive triangles. Don’t understand the value and beauty of it Sacrifice, meaning before all of that, pre-football and extra football. All covered in pride, expertly assembled and modeled by Mourinho, who is to go to war against everyone, against the world: stronger opponents, streaks of injuries, games every three days.

Maybe then this team will end the season without trophies, it would be a real miracle if the opposite happened; Perhaps it could be released in Germany a step away from the finale. But certainly not everyone has realized what Mourinho’s Roma are doing and how far they are stretching within their vast structural limitations. And how he wins so many games. In all of this we see an overwhelming spectacle materialized in the cry of the Olimpico, in the overcoming of technical and physical limits, in the jubilation of A Edward Bove. The extraordinary thing about the ball. Those who only know football might think (and feel) differently.