|
Jose Mourinho always says “We are like a family” but even in the best families, there are still differences and some people who get on better with some members of the family than others. The optimum solution is always to try to minimise the differences and cliques.
Similarly in football, the best squads are always the ones with the fewest cliques. Chelsea travel to the USA at the start of each season in order to spend time together and get to know each other better. Spending 24 hours a day together without partners etc means that they have more chance to bond. It is this bonding that reduces cliques !
At Chelsea, however, there are still a number of cliques. There is the “English” clique with John Terry and Frank Lampard, as the leaders. They have earnt the respect of the others to take on this position, and have willing disciples in Joe Cole, and Wayne Bridge. They have had others in their clique, some of whom were not English; players like Damien Duff and Eidur Gudjohnsen who have both recently left, as well as Peter Cech. Shaun Wright Philips tried to join this clique when he first arrived last year but seemed to spend most of his spare time playing PlayStation with Carlton Cole and Glen Johnson (Both are not at Chelsea this year and so it will be interesting to see if SWP has the confidence properly to join the English clique this year and as a result really make it at the club. His first goal for the club on Wednesday night would have helped his confidence and encouraged entry) It is also always interesting to see the order that the players come out onto the pitch. It is usually the cliques that come out together.
The second clique is the group of black players most of whom come from West Africa. There are no racial issues here but there is a divide due to cultural assimilation and of course the fact that they mainly speak French. Drogba is probably the leader here and he has Geremi, Makelele, Essien and Diarra in his clique along with Gallas who is not really sure where he fits in and seems to have a more reserved personality. Everybody knows that Gallas is a brilliant player and a very versatile one, but he seems to feel permanently underrated wherever he is. He was brilliant in this World Cup but again it was Thuram that won the plaudits. Nobody wants him to leave Chelsea, but it looks like he may want a new challenge or a new clique. For years when the new substantial pay increases were being thrown at Terry and Lampard, Gallas seemed to have been forgotten. He was incorrectly taken for granted. His pride is now hurting and the club have to try to persuade him at this late stage that they really love him. (Having said all that, it is hard to think of many other jobs where a highly paid employee can decide that he no longer wants to work at this place of employment and wants to move on even though there is a legally binding contract!)
The third clique is the Portuguese one and the number of players seems to be diminishing every year. They have already lost Tiago and now Maniche and the core is back to the original two of Carvalho and Ferreira. I think that they are getting closer to the English gang with Ferreira’s good English and Carvalho’s playing alongside Terry, encouraging more direct links.
They in turn have the opportunity to keep in touch with the Portuguese management who are a very close nit group themselves. This includes the fitness staff as well as the management core. The management team speak poor English which means that the only time the supporters hear from them is through the overall leader, Mourinho. (The role of Clarke is partly to be able to keep contact with the English clique.)
The success of Chelsea this year depends on which clique the other players and particularly the new ones fit into. The fewer cliques the better ! Robben is a brilliant player but he seems to be in a clique of one which seems to be a characteristic of the Dutch. They have a tradition of independence - see Davids, see Gullit, and more recently Van Nisteroy. The ideal would be to entice him into the English clique and get him to assimilate their values which will in turn mean that he will have to learn to stay on his feet and take the rough with the smooth.The English do not like to see players falling down and trying to trick the referee. I suspect that for example, there was not much support for him after his antics during the Liverpool home match when he fell to the ground without any real provocation. (There is no doubt that Drogba also starting playing well at the end of last season when Terry informed him in no uncertain terms, that they would prefer it if he decided to stay on his feet.)
If the change can be made, Robben will become a superstar. He needs John Terry and Frank Lampard to take him under their wing. He does not always have a lot of self confidence in his footballing ability but as with the World Cup, he needs people to keep telling him how brilliant he is. (Despite being voted man of the match in the first two Dutch matches during the World Cup, Van Persie’s accusation of greed against Robben after the second match meant that Robben never really played properly again and the Dutch soon went home early. I am not sure that they would have lost if van Persie had encouraged rather than criticised his own team mate: perhaps he wanted some of the attention that was being splashed on Robben !)
Crespo simply had to go. He may be a good player and a crowd favourite but the only clique that he wanted to be part of is the moaning clique. He has an Italian wife who seems to be a nightmare - the management were thinking “please someone, hurry up and take him and his wife back to Italy !” The problem was that nobody wanted to pay for him and has thus had to go out on long term loan. I had a feeling at one stage that Mourinho was prepared to put his hands in his own pocket to ensure that the club got rid of him and he stopped disrupting everyone. He was popular with the supporters but unwilling to join any other clique. I was not a fan of his since he did not believe in the team ethic.
Ashley Cole will arrive sometime and it is just a question of price. He wants to be part of an English group and is fed up of being part of a French team. The problem is that Arsenal have treated him as badly as Chelsea have treated Gallas. Basically they have taken a player who they have developed since he was a child, for granted. Arsenal are a brilliant team but unfortunately Wenger’s way of eliminating cliques has been to only allow one gang which is a French one. (Time to take Gallas to Arsenal?) The language of the club is now French and Cole does not want to remain as the only English player in the team now that Sol Campbell has gone off. There are only two English players left at Arsenal and they are Justin Hoyte and the famous Theo Walcott and neither play first team football. Cole wants and needs a change. He will slot in immediately into the English group at Chelsea. They are all English and mainly from east London. They are united !
So what will happen to Ballack and to Shevchenko ? What about the new youngsters like Kalou and Mike Jon Obi ? How will they fit in ?
Mourinho’s task is to integrate them into one of the existing cliques. He needs to ensure that they do not try to set up a new clique themselves. Ballack has a reputation for looking after himself and his success at Chelsea will depend on integration. Time will tell if this happens.
Other teams have cliques too. Obviously Benitez has signed a large number of Spanish speakers and the question is whether he can force Liverpool to keep English as the lingua franca. Liverpool is becoming known as the Costa Scousa !) Gerrard is not interested in leaving but may want to again if the club were to lose its English tradition.
Manchester United have too many cliques at present and not one leader. Keane used to be the strong personality that kept everything together. He was able to exert his control on the young British players like Giggs, Beckham and Scholes. Now there are too many players vying for leadership at United and this has affected the team. In whose gang is Rooney ? Ronaldo ? Who really wants to be in Gary Neville’s clique ?
The best team is the always one with the fewest cliques and Mourinho has to prove yet again that he has the strength of personality to only allow one clique and one leader and that he is the leader. If he can do that again this year, then nobody will catch Chelsea but it will not be an easy task.
|
