Rui Borges - The Casio King

Any accountant worth their salt will be able to present one set of data in a multitude of ways to serve the needs of their projected audience. Therefore it stands to reason that a writer, in the same way as a lawyer might, should easily be able to present a case in the same manner. Sadly I'm none of the above but I'm willing to give it a shot nonetheless. So with the March international break now upon us I thought it the ideal opportunity to present the case for the mister Rui Borges and see if I can reframe the narrative in which so many try their utmost to paint him in a bad light. 

Ordinarily you wouldn't beat a puppy dog with a stick and yet the Sporting mister with his warm smile and his general demeanor of a pup happily wagging its tail, frequently finds himself at the hands of those eager to beat him with said stick at any given opportunity. My social media feed was awash with a section of fans who couldn't wait to pillar him after the 3-0 defeat in Norway to Bodø/Glimt and calling for his head, who all suddenly went missing after the 5-0 remontada at the José Alvalade hoping people have short memories and wont have noticed. However as they say - the streets never forget. Sadly those so called fans have merely gone dormant and are lying in wait for their next opportunity to call for his head. Maybe you're one of those people and you're reading this now and if so I'd implore you to take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror and question some of your life choices. I can't imagine for the life of me being desperate for someone to fail just so you can have an I told you so moment. Watching Sporting beat Bodø in the remontada must have tasted incredibly bitter sweet for you if that's the case. Only four coaches have ever overcome a 3-0 deficit in the Champions League by the way if which our mister is now one. I don't want to live in an echo chamber to set the record straight, everyone is entitled to their opinions, I for one however just don't agree with them when it comes to the mister. 

At the tender age of 44 the mister is still very much learning his trade, with Sporting his first foray into the spotlight of coaching one of Portugal's biggest clubs. Whilst yes, granted, taking over at Sporting meant in theory that he was given the foundations to succeed by Ruben Amorim, it didn't do João Pereira many favours did it? The club was virtually on its knees by the time the new mister came in and lets not forget that straight from the off he didn't shirk from his new responsibility either. Many a lesser coach would have sat in the stands and analysed his new team in the Dérbi rather than potentially take the hit of a loss on his debut. They say Rui Borges doesn't win big games. They might want to fact check that given he won the Dérbi in his first ever game in charge. There are those in the world that will try tell you that black is white and vice versa. I'm not here trying to tell you he's the perfect mister. But for every one that tries to poor petrol on his record against the teams at the top of the league I'll quite happily piss on your campfire by pointing out the obvious, that only one mister has beaten him in the league with the lions so off you all fuck and play fair please and ensure you also have a pop at your Mourinho’s et al for not being able to beat a mister who in your considered opinion is woefully under qualified to be the Sporting mister. Yes he might not have always come away with three points, but in every game other than the defeat to Porto he's come away with a minimum of one and the last time I checked, one being a greater number than zero. 

Rui Borges is very much his own man whereas João Pereira by comparison had been groomed to be a carbon copy of Ruben Amorim and yet proved to be nothing of the sort. Borges has ripped the game plan of the last two misters into pieces and set about rebuilding the lions in his own image. To do that takes time and patience. Something certain sections of the fanbase clearly don't have. Neither Pereira or Borges was handed the keys to a magic castle. The structure above also vanished with Hugo Viana having disappeared to Manchester City not long after Amorim had departed. All these factors need to be weighed into the short term and long term evaluation. Let's also not kid ourselves into thinking that both Porto and Benfica haven't improved on the versions of themselves from the past two seasons. As for the mister Amorim and his supposed magic sauce, didn't do him much fucking good at Manchester United did it? I wrote time after time that he was the Emperor's new clothes and could never figure out if he was actually the real deal or not. Where did that expression come from in football parlance? Step forward Andre Vilas-Boas. Anyone imagining he's at the head of a new period of dominance for FC Porto might want to think again. Let's remember that Sporting dropped off a cliff the season after they won the first title under Amorim only to bounce back and win the next two. We'll watch this space and let the chips fall where they may. 

Ask yourself the question of what you should expect from a mister at the age of 44 still learning his trade? We all make mistakes whatever we are doing in life and were that statement not true, pencils wouldn't come with rubbers on the end, tippex wouldn't have been invented and keyboards wouldn't come with a delete button. The critical thing is to learn from them. Yes he's guilty of not taking the handbrake off on many occasions, but having let it up against Bodø in the second leg of the Champions League round of 16 maybe he adjusts his thought process. We all evolve. If you're expecting perfection from the mister then maybe you should readjust your settings because no one is perfect. Even if Sporting had the biggest budget in Portuguese football they'd still not be guaranteed success. We know this to be true because Benfica have the biggest budget and the sum total benefit to them from that fact the last campaign was to win the Taça da Liga and only then by virtue of a missed penalty. Even hiring Portugal's most decorated mister has yet to yield any noticeable improvement, albeit they are still to suffer defeat at the time of writing in the league and yet have until last week played catch-up all season long to Sporting and Porto. Now level on points with the lions they've only succeeded in achieving that because the lions game against Tondela was postponed. Yet despite not having the sage wisdom and experience of José Mourinho, Rui Borges can call himself a title winner at a time that he learns and perfects his craft, something which many coaches in Portugal will never have on their CV. He's laying the foundations for his own blueprint and of course it should be noted early on that despite the voices of some calling for him to be replaced, there's no guarantee that a change in the mister would bring about anything positive. We've seen with first hand experience what happened with the last planned change which had been accelerated by Amorim's exit to Manchester United. It all went tits up very fucking quickly indeed. In the words of Joni Mitchell you don't know what you've got till it's gone and I've no idea who originally said be careful what you wish for but their words equally ring true. All told, the mister has lost one league game during his tenure as the Sporting mister and it's not hard to imagine any external eyes examining the situation whilst looking at those calls for him to go would be asking them if those who'd written them are out of their fucking minds? In the time Borges has lost one league game, Tottenham, the current Europa League holders, have lost 28 Premier League games by way of comparison. 

This is a mister who has never once been able to select a starting XI from a full squad. Only recently has he been able to name the same starting XI in consecutive matches. A mister who saw Sporting sell Viktor Gyökeres in the summer who was of course not only the league's top scorer in the previous two seasons but had in each season been voted the league's best player. Yet you've never once heard him grumble about it or use any of it as an excuse. Some seem to find his humility offensive which is quite frankly baffling to me. He accepts everything thrown at him with this, combined also with good grace and is a dab hand at handing Porto's arse back to them on a plate without the need to lower himself to their levels. The man who chooses to wear his Casio watch in lieu of anything that would potentially be more befitting of a mister of one of Os Três Grandes, refuses to lower himself to the gutter talk of his rivals. We should be venerating the man especially at a time when the club is under constant attack from our rivals, especially Porto who seem to think that football is played in the courts and through the propaganda of new and traditional media and not on a football pitch anymore. I don't remember the exact figure I read last year but posts that criticise are something like seven times more likely to be read than those providing praise. There's a reason that the narrative against Borges is constantly being driven and it's not to suit the long term needs of Sporting CP, it's to drive the short term needs of publications towards their sites. 

I appreciate it may be a simplistic view to hold, but let's surmise that we had played Tondela and beaten them and then in turn that we had not given away penalties in both games against Braga in additional time and had taken all six points available, then Sporting would be sat level on points with Porto at the top of the table going into the international break. Football, very much like F1 racing, is a sport of very fine margins. 

No one likes to lose a Clássico and especially not to this iteration of Porto who are quite frankly a stain on the Portuguese game both on and off the field and their behaviour is akin to a toddler who's just been told no. The fact remains though that Rui Borges only league loss has come against a Porto side that is inching ever closer to being league champions. Whereas Farioli’s one loss came against Casa fucking Pia for fucks sakes and I write that as someone who has a soft spot for Casa Pia. Neither has he won a Clássico against Mourinho. Mourinho in turn hasn't won a Clássico or a Dérbi since his return to Portugal and he coaches the side with the biggest budget in the country and is the most successful Portuguese coach in history. Only Jorge Jesus can probably ever have any claim to being in the same conversation as Mourinho and we know how well hiring him at Sporting turned out in trying to win the league title during his tenure which cost the lions a kings ransom in his annual salary. 

On the pitch Luis Suárez might be having the best season of his career but don't insult my intelligence by trying to suggest he's anywhere near as good as Viktor Gyökeres was over the course of his two seasons with us. If your life was at stake and you had to back either the Colombian or the Swede to score in a one on one situation to save it you cannot tell me that you'd take Sporting Gyökeres over Sporting Suárez and if you are telling me that then you've clearly got a deathwish.

I'll save the Gyökeres v Suárez debate for part two when I'll compare the mathematics between last campaign and this one up until the same points.

There are somethings I'll never be able to understand because they're too niche for me. What Rui Borges coming from Trás-os-Montes has to do with the process of sliced bread being one and his accent another. I don't understand a word he says anyways so it makes me no odds to me how he sounds. I do know he doesn't end most of his interviews a la Amorim by saying we had to suffer for the win today. 

If you pointed at the fact he was coach of SC Vitória and had no Champions League experience I'd remind you that Amorim had a grand total of 13 games experience at Braga, cost Sporting €10m to buy him out of his contract coupled with the fact that at least Borges led Vitória to second place in the Conference League behind the billions lavished at the Chelsea squad who would have topped the group format playing their women's squad. 

What he performed at Sporting last season was nothing short of a minor miracle. To overcome the mother of all injury crisis’, to rebuild the moral that had all but vanished and lead them to a second straight league title against all the odds and then add the Taça de Portugal for gloss. You're fooling yourself if you think that was easy. Let's not forget whilst Borges led Sporting to a league and cup double Farioli was busy throwing away a nine point lead in the Eredivisie to lose the title with Ajax on the last day. 

The players are clearly settled and happy playing under the mister and won't give up fighting on all fronts, something that again seems to have escaped the attention of many sections of the fanbase and the media alike. 

Yes Sporting in all likelihood won't win the title this season but that doesn't mean the season hasn't been a success. I don't care if you're Pep Guardiola or Jürgen Klopp, any mister who loses their best player who happened to also be their top goal scorer in the summer is going to witness some type of drop off. But the question is have Sporting dropped off or have Porto just improved immeasurably? 

We'll look at the underlying data in part two.