Portuguese Man of Bore – Jose Mourinho, the tanned Tony Pulis

How did a country as exciting as Portugal produce someone as grey and joyless as Jose Mourinho?

The Portuguese are a people of exoticism: fine wine, bronzed skin and stunning coastlines.

Renowned also for its music – emotional and heartfelt fado – Portugal and its culture oozes excitement, sun and flavour.

All in all, when comparing the Portuguese people with the likes of Tony Pulis, for example, it’s very much a case of chalk and queijo.

So how did the country end up producing someone as grey and joyless as Jose Mourinho?

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And yet, Mourinho and Pulis are almost interchangeable entities these days.

A man who used to embody all that is vibrant about his nation’s heritage can now, with ease, be compared to a baseball cap-sporting Welshman the wrong side of 60. The same Welshman famous not for spice, excitement and style, but Stoke, West Brom and Middlesbrough.

Whilst Jose used to light up a press conference with his cutting wit, brutal honesty and sometimes jaw-dropping arrogance, today he bores the once adoring fans with recycled truisms and never-ending blame games.

In fact, as this was being written, news had just broken about the latest pontification from God himself. And, somehow, his ego hasn’t been dented one bit by recent results.

“When I was 20 I was nobody in football, I was somebody’s son, with a lot of pride, and now with 55 I am what I am. I did what I did because of work and because of talent and my mentality.”

“I could be in another country with the league in the pocket.”

Keep it modest, lad, you’re only at England’s biggest club with a €950m squad.

For obvious reasons, comments like that make us yawn. They make us roll our eyes and then they make us yawn.

Remind you of anyone?

Mourinho has become the master of tedium. His enigmatic, confident approach has faded with dwindling success on the pitch and so Jose’s attempts to keep up with the big boys is suffering.

As we all know, tedium is something at which Pulis, the Portuguese’s former fellow Premier League manager, excels. Perhaps Mou has a stash of caps and tracksuits stored away in secret and – who knows – a regularly audited cutlery set.

Our theory doesn’t stop there, however – it goes way beyond the press room.

Just look at United’s recent style of play. Ineptitude from players seemingly more befitted to doormanship than football, defence that makes you want to peel your eyeballs layer by layer, and a team about as energised as a disused own-brand battery.

The whole situation reeks of Mr Pulis and his days of conducting the tone deaf choir at West Bromwich Albion.

Has Mourinho been reading from his coverless, pictureless, 600-page book? It certainly seems like it. He’s even read the 8,000-word preface. Boring, boring, boring.

But there’s one last thing that makes us draw a comparison between the bland Anthony Richard Pulis and the ostentatious José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix. And it’s all about the money.

Everyone knows that Jose loves his muller. According to Transfermarkt, Manchester United have spent a staggering €348,400,000 on transfers under Mourinho. Taking away who they’ve sold leaves a total net spend of €289,750,000 in just two seasons. F**k us.

But Mourinho isn’t the only man about town with a penchant for readies.

Mr Pulis, in fact, was ordered to pay £3.77m to his former club, Crystal Palace, after deceiving a Premier League managers’ arbitration tribunal. The thieving sod.

It’s a saddening situation even for those outside the red half of Manchester (London, Dubai, Sydney, you name it) to see the tragic demise of arguably football’s most colourful gaffer.

From the wit, the genius, the rip-roaring ride of success and drama, Jose Mourinho has stumbled into a cycle of dullness; a cycle run best by Tony Pulis.

The parallels between the two men have become alarmingly clear and risk putting the Premier League into a permanent lens of greyscale. If we lose our Portuguese flair, we gamble our football on Welsh drizzle instead.

Sort it out, Jose. Abandon the painful tactics, miserable demeanour and, please, don’t even think about the baseball caps.

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