It should not come as a shock that Jose Mourinho is the star turn of Amazon Prime’s documentary, All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur, which details the club’s season and begins its staggered release on Monday.
A born performer, Mourinho hogs the stage from the moment he struts into Hotspur Way, 24 minutes into the first episode. Whether alone in his office and telling a TV commentator who questions his appointment to “f*** off”, or accusing Dele Alli of being “a s*** trainer” in front of the rest of the squad, Mourinho relishes the limelight.
By contrast, his predecessor, Mauricio Pochettino, who had reservations about the fly-on-the-wall series from the start, looks uncomfortable in his only talking head, while publicity-shy chairman Daniel Levy feels like a supporting actor in the Jose show. Jan Vertonghen should consult his stage-trained wife for tips, after a clearly contrived scene in which the Belgian and Harry Kane discuss Pochettino’s shock dismissal.
While there are moments that feel set up, no shortage of PR and some glaring omissions — there is no footage of Pochettino’s sacking, as rumoured — there is also plenty of good detail, and the first three episodes paint a revealing picture of Mourinho’s attempts to win over his new squad.
The true gold comes in a series of one-on-one meetings in the manager’s office with Kane, Alli and Eric Dier. “You forget [the cameras] are there,” Alli later admitted. “It was a real conversation.”
It is surely no coincidence that Mourinho targets the trio first. Kane, Alli and Dier were Pochettino’s most trusted lieutenants, who all paid emotional visits to the Argentine’s home after his sacking.
With each, Mourinho, whose man-management was once unrivalled, takes a different tack. He tells Kane he can turn him into one of the game’s biggest “movie stars”, in what feels like a calculated sales pitch to the England captain. “We have to build your status in that direction,” Mourinho tells him. “My profile, I am little bit like that as a coach. The reality is that my dimension is universal and, by being with me, I think I can help you [to explode].”
His message to Alli is more pep-talk, warning he would regret failing to live up to his potential and subtly questioning the 24-year-old’s “party boy” lifestyle.
“I am 56 now and yesterday I was 20,” Mourinho says. “Time flies. I think one day I think you will regret [it] if you don’t reach what you can reach.”
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With Dier, who was raised in Portugal, Mourinho plays it straight, telling him in his native language that he has a fresh start.
Elsewhere, there is evidence of Mourinho’s habit of baiting his players to provoke a reaction. He demands to know from Davinson Sanchez if he “has balls” and suggests the Colombian’s young Ajax side bottled the 2017 Europa League Final against his Manchester United. He tells Serge Aurier he is “afraid” of his defending because the Ivorian is capable of giving away “a s*** penalty with VAR”.
All of these early interactions feel like calculated attempts by Mourinho to psychologically impose himself on the players and the theme of the series promises to be his quest to turn Spurs from a group of “nice boys” to “a bunch of intelligent c****”, in his own words.
It is still not clear if Mourinho will succeed — Spurs’s season, after all, was neither all nor nothing — but this documentary makes compelling viewing.