Being a Spurs fan, I watched the recent 9-part documentary about Tottenham Hotspur's 2019-20 season, ominously titled 'All or Nothing' (while the outcome ended up being , of course, somewhere much closer to nothing but not quite nothing).
It threatened to be a bit interesting for a while but was comfortably 6 episodes too long. The players seemed nice, Harry Kane gave a hint of the clarity of purpose that has carried a young man of seemingly unexceptional talent to being one of the best in the world.
It was all remarkably spick and span - top marks to Spurs' cleaners. that's for sure.
The supposed star is Jose Mourinho - a manager I always loathed, I, like most Spurs fans, have had to find a way to reconcile to him being Spurs manager. He's doing an ok job, maybe 7/10 so far, and has not yet been a dreadful person as some presume he will inevitably be.
In the documentary he comes across fine, though sometimes a bit ridiculous, and there is little hint of the specialness and genius which he must possess, or have possessed, for his achievements in football, particularly with Porto and Inter, are real and impossible to play down.
I think Mourinho in his first incarnation as box office managerial genius was broken by the Eva Carneiro incident - fans, players, journalists, even himself, could no longer look at him and think "he's just pretending to be a scumbag to deflect pressure from the players and as some kind of of master plan".
It was really awful, undercurrents of sexism, unprofessionalism, ruthlessness far beyond the appropriate level.
He did ok (7/10) for a while at Man Utd, I suspect he really has tried to remake his style and brand a bit, but some of the magic is forever lost.
Yet, he'll still be a diligent, smart manager, and that's the fascinating bit. For Spurs, success is set lower than at any of the clubs he's been at. If he can wangle to Spurs to just one Cup in the next couple of season, he will be deemed a success - simple as that. There are three chances of that per season (probably) - the League Cup, the FA Cup, the Europa League - Spurs are probably roughly 20-1 for all of them - so what does that make? About a 1 in 3 chance of him being a success as it stands?
Or maybe less, because the chances it all goes sour before that are solid. Ah well, we'll see.
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