Beyond the Field. Dare to be more interesting

Shortly after Floyd Mayweather had secured a clinically brilliant victory against Manny Pacquiao in what was branded — perhaps incorrectly — as the fight of the century, at Las Vegas on May 2, comments abounded on social media comparing Mayweather to Jose Mourinho. Both, the commentators said, sucked the joy out of sports. They focus their energies purely on an endeavour to win at all costs, concerned not about aesthetics or style, but solely raw efficiency. As it would happen, Mourinho’s Chelsea football club would seal their fifth English league title a day after Mayweather’s triumph, with a 1-0 win against Crystal Palace. Chelsea finished the 90 minutes with three defensive midfielders on the pitch. Having opened the scoring, Mourinho found the deployment of such a tactic the pragmatic thing to do. Considered impassively, his ploy seemed the natural one. But a deeper analysis, as some of the criticism of Chelsea has shown, can reveal more questions, even if Mourinho ultimately always seems vindicated.

Chelsea, it’s important to bear in mind, were phenomenally dominant in the first half of the season. They played a direct style of football, scored plenty of goals, and were often thrilling to watch. But an injury to their talismanic striker Diego Costa saw Mourinho revert to type after the turn of the year. He seemed to, at times, instruct his team to eschew possession of the ball, and to concentrate only on their defensive shape, working primarily on swift counter-attacks to score their goals. This, to the neutral observer, killed a lot of the fun in football. But, the first thing to recognise in this debate — if indeed we can call it that — is that good football and beautiful football, much like good boxing and beautiful boxing, do not always coincide. Good football represents any kind of strategy that allows a team, given its resources and playing staff, to win matches and titles, so long as it implements its plans fairly and ethically, by adhering to the fundamental rules of the game. Beautiful football, on the contrary, does not partake of such objective judgment.

Determining what is beautiful football involves an inherently subjective dissection. One viewer, for example, might derive pleasure from watching football rich in passing and movement, and with a strong emphasis on ball retention. But other viewers might consider such a style boring. In fact, when Spain was at their zenith, many football fans found them unwatchable; their style — the tiki-taka — to some spectators represented a joyless, tedious form of football. But yet, the tiki-taka, which involves endless passing, often sideways and backwards, to ensure ball-possession, began to be considered, possibly because of its sheer effectiveness, as a prototype of excellence.

If you found Spain boring, you were branded a philistine who knew little about the art of football. Yet, it was difficult at times to derive pleasure from watching them. Their football was no doubt sophisticated and productive, but their lack of direct focus in trying to seek goals made their domination frequently drab and aseptic. If we were to hypothesise that teams have a moral obligation to play beautiful football, the question begs asking: who decides what is beautiful?

Gianni Brera, the great Italian journalist, observed that the perfect game would end goalless. It would mean neither team had committed a mistake. Such efficiency, you’d imagine, must also make for fine viewing. There is a unique thrill to watching a team produce a tactical master class, outsmarting the opponent through stratagem and nous, through solid defensive organisation. Mourinho is a kind of coach who prefers such an approach. But at the same time, as the journalist Jonathan Wilson wrote in the Guardian recently, it’s easy to see Mourinho as the philosopher king of a form of anti-futbol, as a figure who appears to revel in producing teams that are defensive for the sake of not merely a victory but a victory that rebels against the establishment. For some, this might make for frustrating viewing. Yet, the question remains: does Mourinho have an obligation to make his team subscribe to commonly held notions of beautiful football. He is certainly answerable to Chelsea’s fans and its owner. But beyond that, must he really care?

I have often vacillated on this question. I enjoy watching teams that look to attack with speed and power, that look beyond mere defensive solidity in the interest of allowing the team’s creative players to flourish. But the vagaries that go into determining what constitutes an appropriate aesthetic of good football makes it difficult to make an argument that there exists a larger obligation to play football — or indeed any sport — by conforming to subjective opinions of beauty.

There are many reasons why we watch sport. Seeking artistic pleasure, and indeed entertainment, might be amongst them; but these are never the sole prerogatives. Sport, at its finest, evokes emotions that are derived not merely from aesthetics, but also from drama, from clever strategies, from a contrast in styles. If Mourinho, and for that matter, Mayweather can find ways within the confines of a game’s structure to engineer victories, while sacrificing attacking aggression, they are not as much killing the sport, as they are making it more interesting. Let’s celebrate that diversity.

(This monthly column examines sports through the lens of history, politics and culture.)

S uhrith Parthasarathy is a Chennai-based lawyer and writer @suhrith