If you believe in karma, and you watched yesterday’s 3-3 draw with Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United, plus the Jose Mourinho media session to preview that match, well you might believe that karmic allegiance was with Mourinho’s long-time arch-nemesis Arsene Wenger.
First, let’s recap the game- Mourinho’s Tottenham side raced out to a very early 3-0 lead, scoring their trifecta within the first 16 minutes of action. Cruising towards what seemed like an easy three points, they held a clean sheet until the 82nd minute, when West Ham’s Fabian Balbuena got the Irons finally on the board.
Then a Davinson Sanchez own goal put the Hammers within one at the 85’, with an extra time equalizer coming from Manuel Lanzini on the very last kick of the game. Mourinho and Spurs had dropped two points in stoppage time, having to settle for a 3-3 draw.
The Special One didn’t really have any answers in his post match media session, other than to say that his side wasn’t mentally strong enough in this match to close the deal and kill off the game.
It was a draw that only felt like a loss, but a draw felt like about as painful as a loss could be. Now let’s flash back to April of 2018, when Wenger stepped down (which many have said was not entirely by his choosing) after his monumental 22 years at Arsenal. In that moment, Mourinho had a lot of praise for Wenger; finally!
“If he’s happy I’m happy, if he’s sad, I’m sad,” he told his press conference, ahead of that year’s FA Cup semifinal against Tottenham.
So there was indeed peace in our time regarding the long running Mourinho-Wenger feud. Or so we thought, as we all knew the story of this rivalry had at least one more plot twist left.
Last week, Wenger released his book “My Life in Red & White,” and it had zero mention of Mourinho.
Speaking at his weekly Friday news conference, Mourinho was asked why he was omitted from the book and replied:
“Because he never beat me. You are not going to do a chapter about 12 or 14 matches and never win one so why should he speak about me in his book?
“A book is a thing to make you happy, to make you proud so I understand perfectly the situation.”
So it was a perceived snub, responded to with an epic troll job on Friday. Then Friday, Mourinho suffers an agonizingly painful result. Meanwhile that Sunday evening Wenger was free of the stress that accompanies being a big six Premier League manager, enjoying retirement with his estimated $48 million net worth, and a cushy gig as head of Football Development at FIFA.
Perhaps Le Proffeseur was even watching somewhere in schadenfreude delight.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.