There's nothing Jose Mourinho likes more than causing mischief and his latest comments to the Mirror, suggesting managers should be able to stop matches in order to impart instructions and tactical advice to his players, look like precisely that. Using the example of the water breaks during the 2014 World Cup, Mourinho suggests such breaks would make the game more interesting by allowing teams to be more adaptive to difficult situations, such as when Chelsea were struggling to break down Leicester City in the first half of their encounter last Saturday. This idea is essentially the same as the timeout option which exists in most American sports, wherein coaches can halt the game at strategic moments to make changes. Such a drastic move would almost certainly be embraced by TV sports channels, giving them the chance to insert additional ad breaks into their match coverage. Indeed, TV timeouts - wherein a broadcaster has the chance to interrupt the game for an ad break - already exists in such sports as basketball and American football. It would also be interesting to see how games like FIFA and Football Manager would adapt, perhaps limiting the player's opportunities to make tactical changes other than substitutions until a nominated timeout period. Regardless, to my mind the introduction of timeouts would only ruin the flow of the game in addition to adding the frustration of extra ad breaks. It's always healthy to debate how football can be made better but I'm not convinced this would work, or that Mourinho was being entirely serious suggesting it in the first place.
28-year old English writer with a borderline obsessive passion for films, videogames, Chelsea FC, incomprehensible words and indefensible puns. Follow me on Twitter if you like infrequent outbursts of absolute drivel.
