Just a Little Bit?

The football manager - a noble and dedicated breed, governed by strict, gentlemanly guidelines. Respect is, of course, high on the agenda of such people. So what exactly defines that mystical notion of respect?

Nuno Espirito Santo has managed to find himself on the wrong side of the respect line during his time with Wolves. He was recently shown a red card as he ran onto the pitch to celebrate his sides last minute winner against Leicester. It seems that respect includes an element of reservedness. It’s okay to be happy at your team winning, but calm restraint must apparently be shown. Or you could be sneaky like Jurgen Klopp and run up to your goalkeeper to celebrate, out of sight of the referee.

Last year, too, Santo was caught on the wrong side of a respect based incident. In the euphoria of his teams dramatic victory over Cardiff in the Championship, he ran onto the pitch to celebrate with his team, forgetting his post match handshake with Neil Warnock. Realising soon after that he had forgotten this, he ran over to Warnock to amend the situation. Warnock promptly told him to “fuck off.”

This throws up a conundrum in the field of respect. Warnock raged post match about the handshake incident, using it as a timely distraction from his sides two missed penalties. While he ranted of Santo’s disrespect, he kindly skipped over the fact that he had sworn at the Portuguese manager as he attempted to atone for his error in judgement.

So by the old English school, telling your contemporary - and pretty much every referee in the country - to “fuck off” is fine, but forgetting a handshake is not.

The Marcelo Bielsa ‘spy gate’ incident also wavers towards a similar mindset. In his post match comments on the issue, Frank Lampard alluded (while gleaming over the antics of his old manager, Jose Mourinho) to it being a “cultural” thing. Apparently, no such skulduggery and dirty tricks are ever present among the British.

In the aftermath of the incident, Bielsa then produced a powerpoint of epic proportions explaining the intricate detail he had gathered on Derby before the game, without the aid of his training ground spy. Surely, this thorough and extensive research is truly respecting your opponent?

Jose Mourinho reminded everybody earlier this season at a press conference that respect is apparently remembering how many Premier Leagues a manager has won. He brandished three fingers to the media to hammer home his point, as well as repeating the word “respect” as he promptly departed the press conference. He was a tenor saxophone solo and a chorus of backing singers holding the line “just a little bit” away from a major copyright claim.

So taking into account all of this, what actually is respect? It is, essentially, undefinable. One persons guidelines appear to differ completely from the next. It’s a concept utterly bogged down in hypocrisy and opinion, like Sean Dyche grumbling about the bad sportsmanship of diving while his Burnley side fly into heavy challenges and time waste constantly.

Managers may like to climb up to the moral high ground at any given opportunity (usually when they’ve lost a game and need something to grasp on to) but ultimately, it is something that is completely ‘in the eye of the beholder.’