Compiled by SEAN MORAN

Mourinho cause of endless debate

BARCELONA DEFEATED Real Madrid to reach the final of this year's Champions League. When at home Madrid played poorly and lost; last Tuesday they played a bit better and drew. Barcelona are regarded as the best club side in the world and, in more breathless calculations, the greatest ever.

There is much guff talked about Real Madrid – how their followers are not satisfied by success (which is good, as there has been so little of it recently) but by considerations of “style”.

Nonetheless they all seemed happy to win the Copa del Rey, beating Barcelona in the final, which seems to be Spanish soccer’s equivalent of the McGrath Cup, although the latter trophy has yet to be dropped under a bus somewhere in Munster.

The team’s coach, Jose Mourinho, is the cause of endless debate about his eccentricities.

He is by many accounts absolutely the wrong person to be in Madrid because his career to date indicates he busies himself winning trophies rather than nurturing flamboyant soccer.

Real Madrid is, we are told, one of the few places – presumably outside of Galway hurling in the Matt Murphy era – where winning the league is no protection against a coach being told to pack his bags. So, failing to win the league and in the process allowing Barcelona their first three-in-a-row since the time of Johan Cruyff would strike anybody as a risk.

Not alone is Mourinho said to have failed but to have failed so ignominiously as to be unworthy of other positions, most notably at Manchester United where the aesthetic standard is said to be as high as in Madrid.

The reason for this is his behaviour is “unacceptable” in that he frequently make preposterous comments alleging bias on the part of media and referees, blaming setbacks on such perceived injustices rather than on the shortcomings of his team – outbursts that yesterday earned him a five-match ban.

In other words, a perfect fit for any void left by Alex Ferguson’s retirement, a view research indicates would be validated by a selection of referees and media – Martin Atkinson, Mike Dean, Mark Clattenberg, the BBC, Herbert Fandel etc and others who have drawn the splenetic wrath of the United manager down on their heads – not to speak of recurrent suspensions.

On the more basic matter of how the team performs on the field it appears a bit unfair to revise judgment on someone who has achieved empirical success at so many clubs because their first year hasn’t gone as well as usual.

At Internazionale, Mourinho stayed for two years and became the second most successful manager in the club’s history after Helenio Herrera, who was there for nine years.

Having maintained the club’s supremacy in Serie A with a title in his first year, Mourinho set about addressing the serial inability to win the Champions League stretching back 45 years.

The team he built for the second season was able to deliver on that and along the way, beat Barcelona in a fascinating semi-final where Inter managed to outplay the holders with a cerebral display designed to counter their opponents’ extravagant talent.

His teams are capable of going on scoring runs but Mourinho prioritises defensive organisation as a first step in the process, as he will need to do if he’s staying at the Bernabeu.

It’s hard to imagine any club – and that includes Real Madrid – that wouldn’t benefit from having him in charge and there have been very few supporters happy to see him depart from any of the clubs he has managed.

€75m payout conditional on anti-doping policy

THE NEWS that 92 footballers and hurlers were tested under the Irish Sports Council’s anti-doping programme last year reminds us the whole question of drug testing became reality for the GAA just over 10 years ago.

On the eve of congress in April 2001, just as the question of opening Croke Park to other sports was about to be discussed, it was announced that €75 million would be made available to the GAA as a grant towards the redevelopment of Croke Park.

Everyone assumed the government was weakening the economic argument for opening the stadium in order to strengthen then taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s Stadium Ireland project in Abbotstown.

In fact the most insistent condition attached to the money was revealed in a communication between Ahern and then GAA president Seán McCague on the very day the money arrived, April 6th, 2001 (curiously only made available to this newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act after appeal to the Information Commissioner).

As well as stipulating how the €75 million would be paid and what use the GAA would make of Stadium Ireland, it was specified at point 13: “. . . The commitments in this letter are conditional on the GAA complying with the Government’s anti-doping in sport programme.”

Leinster rugby and Dublin football keep drawing them in

LAST WEEKEND’S rhapsodies in blue in the capital showed again the drawing power of well-organised teams in major demographic centres.

To the tuneful accompaniment of crowds urging on the various “Bize in Blew” (exhortations that fell on deaf ears only in the case of Cavan) Leinster rugby and Dublin hurlers emerged as big winners on a great sporting weekend.

With the crowd at the hurling league final, allowing for the significant attendance generated by the under-21 football final, officially outstripping the football equivalent a week previously, there are naturally hopes that Dublin’s hurlers can at last attract at least a sizeable portion of the football crowds.

The dual activity on either side of the river focuses attention on an interesting rivalry that has developed between the two best supported teams in the country this year, Leinster rugby and Dublin football.

It’s not easy to compare statistics when the latter so frequently play on double-bills but that can be borne in mind when looking at the respective totals.

In 2010 Leinster attracted a total of 251,018 to 15 home matches between Magners League and Heineken Cup, an average of 16,735.

Last year Dublin averaged 37,385 (including total attendances at six double-bills) over 10 Allianz League (three at home) and GAA All-Ireland championship matches (all in Croke Park).

Dublin have yet to face into this year’s championship but figures to date show that both teams have considerably stepped up their figures on last year.

Leinster have been able to avail of the new Aviva Stadium on Lansdowne Road and have done so shrewdly, staging four matches that have averaged just under the 50,000 capacity.

This has led to a current total of 346,303, averaging 24,735, a figure that will fall when last night’s match with Glasgow and any home semi-final are taken into account (the RDS capacity is smaller than the running average).

Dublin footballers have played their home Allianz League matches in Croke Park, averaging 28,243 over the four fixtures, which were twice staged with hurling league fixtures, rising to nearly 30,000 if the final against Cork is included.

Rabbitte's utterings sweet music to IRFU

IT SLIPPED through with little publicity considering the howls of pain occasioned by the original idea. Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte announced during the week he would not be adding to the list of sports events designated as free to air. The IRFU nearly passed out when the minister’s predecessor Eamon Ryan proposed expanding the list to include Heineken Cup matches. That awful prospect has now passed and the satellite television money will continue to course through the game.

It is interesting to note the rugby authorities’ basis for opposing the move was not endorsed by the consultants Indecon, whose report was considered by the new minister when reaching his decision. The report also suggested GAA provincial finals should come under the same remit. Cheltenham is excluded because it is outside the jurisdiction, a consideration that isn’t required in the case of the Ulster hurling final, which is seen as having too limited an appeal to be included (the Ulster football final is played in Clones).

Maybe the solution to the IRFU’s anxieties, should a future minister decide to go with the Indecon report, would be to build a big stadium across the border and stage all the provinces’ Heineken Cup matches there.

Obi-Wan Kenobi reporting for duty

"US FIRMS such as Narrative Science and Statsheet are using sophisticated report writing software to automatically generate summaries of sports fixtures from a set of data. Aside from programmers who develop the software, no humans are involved." – The Irish Times, Wednesday, May 4th, 2011.

It’s been a nervous time, starting on a new career. I’d been programmed to be wary of my work colleagues, who may prove suspicious of me or even hostile. As a precaution it’s been arranged that the software be rewritten slightly to incorporate some of the habits of my human colleagues – or “friends”, as I’m encouraged to call them.

So far, so good: as soon as I process my “report” I store it for a few hours before submitting it far closer to “the deadline” – or ideally even a little later.

Initial reactions to my work haven’t been terribly enthusiastic, with 75.4 per cent of people saying I rely too heavily on statistics. But I’m working on that and have tweaked the data in order to make it as blindingly obvious as possible and occasionally incorrect.

To forge better relations with my co-workers I have been enabled to go into the office, sit at a desk with a large paper cup marked “Cappuccino” in my metallic claw and simulate the cynical laughter with which my colleagues discuss the great issues affecting their sports.

My simulation isn’t terribly advanced and the insistent, high-pitched cackling has caused irritation to my “friends” and distress to highly strung people in other departments.

God, I’m bored.