THERE is only one thing worse in life than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Jose Mourinho has lived his entire life by Oscar Wilde’s doctrine and will be loving all the fuss created by his latest tantrum.
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The 60-year-old teenager was filmed in the Puskas Arena car park hurling abuse at the match officials following Roma’s Europa League final defeat by Sevilla on Wednesday.
“F***ing crooks, f***ing scandalous,” he screamed at referee Anthony Taylor and his assistants as they left the stadium.
And on the night irony died, he then declared in his post-match press conference: “I always tell my players you can lose a match but you can’t lose your dignity.
“We have lost the match but we haven’t lost our dignity.”
Says the man who wouldn’t know dignity if it bit him on the backside.
For this is the guy who could start an argument in an empty room, the coach once dubbed “the enemy of football” by Uefa’s referees chief.
A parody provocateur whose hissy-fits have become as predictable as they are boring.
It has been a long-established pattern of Mourinho’s behaviour to overshadow every defeat by creating chaos.
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His team or his tactics are never to blame. It’s always someone else’s fault.
And you cannot argue that his siege mentality hasn’t paid dividends over the years.
He never tires of reminding us of how many trophies he has won as a coach (26 if you count the various Community Shields and Portuguese, Spanish and Italian Super Cups — which he definitely does).
Yet all that silverware still hasn’t been enough to keep him in a job for more than three years because he’s fallen out with virtually every club which has ever employed him.
It wouldn’t be so bad if he achieved all his undeniable success with attacking, champagne football.
But it’s the relentless win-at-all costs negativity which grinds everyone down until they simply can’t stomach any more.
Not all of his clubs were glad to see the back of him but Chelsea (twice), Real Madrid, Manchester United and Spurs were all ready to drive him to the airport after losing the will to live.
No matter what punishment, it won’t change Mourinho’s puerile behaviour. Because as long as it’s all about him, he doesn’t care.
And now he’s doing his best to p*** off Roma by constantly flirting with Paris Saint-Germain, which would be football’s ultimate marriage made in hell.
Roma are currently clinging on to sixth place — and a spot in next season’s Europa League — by a single point in Serie A.
But Mourinho is suspended for Sunday’s final game against Spezia — which gives him plenty of ammunition for another conspiracy theory.
He’s already outraged the Italian FA by wearing a hidden microphone to “protect himself” against a referee he labelled “the worst I have ever encountered”.
Presumably he has revised that opinion following Wednesday’s run-in with Taylor in Budapest and he now faces yet another disciplinary charge from Uefa.
But no matter what punishment they throw at him, it won’t change Mourinho’s pattern of puerile behaviour.
Because as long as it’s all about him, he really doesn’t care.
