Chelsea: Conte’s anticipated firing spurs new genre of fan fic: sack porn
By George Perry
The rumours of Chelsea’s intent to sack Antonio Conte have been around so long they have created an alternate reality, one better suited for pulp novels and HBO than football.
The sack race is one of the more sordid sides of the football world. Transfer rumours, however silly, are at least aspirational. Which players will your club buy as a statement of ambition and a down-payment on success? Who might improve your hopes for promotion, qualifications or silverware?
We can cloak the sack race in similar thoughts – we just want what’s best for the team, and this guy isn’t it! But there’s no way around it: the sack enthusiasts are frothing for a man to be summarily fired in the most embarrassing and transactional way possible. It’s Fifty Shades of Gray combined with The Hunger Games, as presented by Paul Merson.
Pundits can’t back down from a rumour – that would suggest they could be wrong! They can’t not talk about Chelsea, the club is an endless source of drama and interest. And if you talk about Chelsea, you have to talk about Roman Abramovich’s history with managers. But if you are going to talk about Antonio Conte, you cannot simply rehash the expectation. The rumours have been around for so long his exit is now taken for granted. You have to provide something new, something that will grab people as strongly as it did the first time in September 2016. You have to peddle the dopamine that brings the clicks.
And so we have the new genre of football fan fic: Antonio Conte sack porn. Conte no longer speaks or states or says anything. He blasts, he swings, he fires shots, he lashes out, he takes swipes. His early season comments are not predictions or forecasts based on years of experience, but self-fulfilling and intentionally self-crippling prophecies. He’s volatile, and he’s going to war with the board.
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Obviously, drama requires two sides, and Roman Abramovich does not come to the table to avoid a war. From the crisis meetings at Stamford Bridge in September 2016 when Abramovich attended practices and shadowed Conte, to the recent tales of Conte speaking with Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea preparing their short-lists of managers, the level of detail is exceeded only by the grinning vitriol of the reporting.
The notion of Conte lasting the whole season is a stay of execution, what with the collision course being set. Even unnamed and unquoted fans are training their fire on him. But hey, if the board do sack him, that’s OK – he wants it so bad he’s practically begging for it. Like we said, Fifty Shades of Blue, er, Gray.
Meanwhile, in Manchester, Jose Mourinho gave a 12-minute explanation of how Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Chelsea (again) and Manchester United were all s–t teams before he showed up. He said they each lacked “heritage” until he showed up to provide it. Clearly, Chelsea had no history until 2003, so of course they had no heritage. Inter Milan had no heritage until 2008. Real Madrid had no heritage until 2010. Manchester United may have once had some heritage, but by the time Special One showed up it was gone. Any heritage you see now is new heritage. Jose heritage.
A naive observer may think Mourinho was blasting his club with these swings interspersed with shots, lashes and swipes. But instead, the responses ranged from a Talmudic parsing of his every phrase to the “Jose will be Jose” defence.
This has been the Premier League’s costliest year in terms of managerial turnover. Few firings caught anyone by surprise because anyone can read the table, read the tea leaves and do a quick check to see which escape artist is available. Alan Pardew is still in at West Bromwich Albion, but no one expects him to last much beyond the end of the season, if that. No one seems particularly gleeful about Pardew leaving. It’s just one of those things. But Conte’s departure will be standing room only in the town square.
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If Antonio Conte leaves Chelsea before 2019, the next round of punditry will be “I told you so” and “I called it (insert date and link here).” There’s almost a vested interest in his departure. They have spun these tales for so long, they need them to be true. Conte’s continuance in the job is almost an insult to them, as if he is personally enduring this season simply to spite his critics.
They are not able to influence any decisions at Stamford Bridge, but they can at least tell their version of the story in parallel with the real thing. Much like how the TV series Game of Thrones gradually diverged from the books, the imagined power struggles in West(eros) London bears a vanishing resemblance to what is actually happening behind the Matthew Harding Wall, er, Stand.
If Chelsea finish outside the top four, expect to read about how Marina Abramovich rode her dragon to the Conte family’s manor, where Antonio challenged a Dothraki warlord leader to single combat to determine the next manager of Chelsea Football Club. Carlo Cudicini will volunteer as tribute, and eviscerations will ensue.
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Meanwhile, over the next few months some paper will change hands and a perfunctory notice of an extension or firing will go up on the official website. Good luck getting people to click on that.