Sean McGuire: A lasting legacy to remember Jose by

Oct 4 2007 by Sean McGuire, Liverpool Daily Post

TWO weeks later and it’s still difficult to believe that life must go on. But, with Senor Jose saying ‘adeus’, we must accept his departure.

Thankfully with every passing day there is a volunteer seeking to keep his legacy alive by reminding us of the Special One’s qualities.

In honour of the important work in his memory, it is fitting to award these stalwarts with a trophy, a Jose.

Each winner will receive a statuette of the man himself made from European bronze to commemorate those Champions League semi-final appearances.

In time-honoured fashion, if we could dim the lights and start the drumroll...

The Jose for sartorial elegance... David Moyes.

Suited and booted rather than tracksuited for the Middlesbrough game, Moyes was making an early bid to become the new best-dressed boss.

Tonight’s trip to the Ukraine won’t be any help in getting a Mediterranean tan, but if his sharp dressing can translate into sharp shooting by his forwards, he might get to experience the fashion delights of Paris and Rome in later rounds.

The Jose for gobsmacking arrogance... Dennis Wise.

Mourinho was well-known for his make-believe abuse of referees, just ask Anders Frisk.

There must be something in the water running under Stamford Bridge because former Chelsea scrapper Dennis Wise has also been inflamed by a referee’s conduct.

The loveable rogue – well, someone must – was furious that referee Danny McDermid had the temerity to send off Trevor Kandol and Jermaine Beckford last Saturday.

In fact he was so furious he was sent to the stands at half-time, when his team still had 10 men.

But not to be outdone, he counter-alleged that the referee was abusive to the Leeds manager at the end of the game.

‘The big issue here is that, at the end of the game, the referee has told me to f*** off’, said Dennis.

‘I think that is totally and utterly unacceptable.’

And, for once, he’s right... Mr McDermid was far too nice.

The Jose for flattering to deceive... Sir Alex Ferguson.

Football’s equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters maintained a reputation as an expansive, entertaining team for long after the evidence would support such an idea, just as their aura of invincibility was eventually proven to be just a bad smell.

Chelsea, with seven goals in eight games, are supposedly a club in crisis while Manchester United with, errr, seven goals in eight games, are second.

Fergie’s fledglings Mk II got flogged last week and aesthetically his first-choice team are more Viv Anderson than Pamela Anderson.

And despite Ferguson’s efforts to make his team’s results look like binary code, you don’t need to be a computer whizz to realise that they need to improve before their luck takes a turn for the worse.

The Jose for getting what you wished for... Avram Grant.

The more that Mourinho went on about bad refereeing decisions, the more he seemed to attract them (Lawrie Sanchez take note).

And so it is with Avram Grant.

He arrived at a club run by men with egos the size of tectonic plates, forced a screwdriver into the cracks, then sat back and waited for the inevitable earthquake.

The Jose for when, not if... Martin Jol.

Just as Mourinho’s demise became a matter of timing long before the executioner’s axe fell, across London Martin Jol is sitting precariously below his own sword of Damocles.

The Aston Villa fans taunted him by singing ‘Happy birthday to you’ as they took a 4-1 lead on the night of Spurs’ 125th birthday celebrations.

It looked like Jol had been giftwrapped to the Tottenham board after a defensive performance so bad that it would’ve made Reading players blush.

While the fightback ensured that the Villa fans’ other chant, ‘You’re getting sacked in the morning’, will be delayed, it made his departure inevitable.

And, just as Jose found, blaming referees, the support of the dressing room or even dressing well can’t save a manager when his time is up.

Just why do the home unions keep lacking the X Factor?

THE powers-that-be in Irish rugby union may well be regretting their recent decision to give a four-year contract extension to Eddie O’Sullivan, the coach of the national team, following their really awful performances in the rugby union World Cup.

Whatever their feelings about the wisdom of that decision, they will surely be pondering the much greater question of why a team that looked so good just six months ago has morphed into a bunch of losers who barely managed to beat Georgia and, in their last ‘must-win’ match were beaten so easily by Argentina.

It seems that the home unions never quite manage to build teams capable of sustaining good form on anything approaching a consistent basis. Why?

Certainly, since the decision to admit to open professionalism in 1995, the form of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales has been about extremely unpredictable to say the least.

I do not claim to know the answer, but I think it is one of sport’s great mysteries.

One possible reason is the lack of a pre-match, haka-style war dance.

Perhaps our lads need a bit of a gee-up before kick-off, like the All Blacks, Tongans and Samoans, or a more stirring national anthem like the emotional South African anthem or the matey Aussie version, to make them feel like getting stuck in.

Could the answer be to hold an X-Factor competition?

Simon could work with the English team, Louis with the Irish, Sharon with the Scots, while Dannii could bring a bit of Antipodean glamour to the Welsh pre-match ritual, as it seems that endless verses of ‘Cwyn Rhondda’ and ‘Delilah’ are not doing the trick.