Anthony Taylor caught in José Mourinho’s toxic trail but anger problem runs deeper

“L ike Jaws if everyone in Jaws worked for Jaws.” Watching José Mourinho circle the touchline at the Puskas Arena on Wednesday night, giving off that horribly persuasive eau de la haine, it was hard not to be reminded of the words of cousin Greg, Succession’s beanpole idiot savant, describing a similar scene of top-down toxicity.

We know that Mourinho energy by now, the toxic theatre, the performative rage, the love of conspiracy and imagined injustice. What does he look like these days, with his perfect shock of white hair, the quicksilver glare? An arms dealer on his way to play golf? A wrongly convicted serial killer who lives in a palazzo and drinks fine wine and turns out at the end of the movie to be a serial killer after all? Some kind of sporting dark lord: wronged football Jesus?

These have always been Mourinho’s modes, his method of intruding into the spectacle. In the past this has often been enacted with a knowing leer, an edge of something that seems close to satire. But Budapest felt like a step into something else.

Mourinho is exceptionally popular at Roma. The club have been flattered and re-energised by his presence. At the Puskas it was clear this includes some startlingly toxic consequences, with coaching staff and club officials not just going along with the show but looking oddly fanaticised, a cult of José.

We know what happened next. The pictures of Anthony Taylor being harassed with his family at Budapest airport are shocking for so many reasons, most obviously because of the fear on the faces of his wife and daughter. Frankly the entire Taylor family deserve a medal for staying calm in the face of such venal, pointless hatred.

But then so many aspects of this are strange. The security was