The Father Who Must Be Killed

I have been planning to write something here on Jacques Lacan and Football for a while. However, given Sir Alex raising his spectre, I thought I would start with looking at Freud. Specifically in relation to Rafa Benitez.
Sir Alex had this to say:

“I would need to read more of Freud before I could really understand all that ["Rafa's Rant"],” Ferguson said. “I don’t know where it came from and I’m not really interested. It never bothered me then and it doesn’t bother me now.”

Sir Alex is, one would have to imagine, a busy man, so, having read a great deal of Freud, I thought I would have a go at a Freudian reading of "Rafa's Rant", because, as I'm sure Freud would agree, if Sir Alex is saying he isn't interested, that probably means he is.
The first thing to point out is that to understand the actual effects of "Rafa's Rant " [RR from now on] it is not necessary to resort to Freud. All one has to do is to compare RR with the type of approach Sir Alex might have taken. Sir Alex's usual approach is to create a siege mentality within the club, Us vs Them, everyone against us, thus bringing the team together - we can overcome all the obstacles if only we stick together. RR on the other hand failed because it was the direct opposite of this. Benitez points out, even if he is complaining about it, and even if he is entirely wrong, that Man Utd have all the advantages. Consequently he is saying, "it does not matter what we do, for Man Utd will always get the decisions, they will always have the advantage of the fixtures". In the midst of his apparently defiant speech he completely gives up, telling his players that, try as they might, nothing can be changed, it is written that Man Utd will win the Premiership. Is it any surprise that their subsequent results were disappointing?
Where Freud comes in is in the Why? Why did Benitez choose to do the rant, and why do it when Liverpool were top of the league?
In the piece I was going to write on Lacan I was going to (and will, when I finally get round to it) make the point that Sir Alex is in the postion of the Father. There is in Freudian theory two father's; one, the father of the Oedipus complex, the father who is an obstacle to our enjoyment; and two, the Primal Father, described in Freud's Totem and Taboo, "a violent and jealous father who keeps all the females for himself and drives away his sons as they grow up". This is the all-powerful father, the only one allowed to enjoy. With regard to football one can see how Sir Alex occupies the position of the father, not only through his longevity, but in the respect he is afforded, the weight his words are given, and most importantly in the fact that he is perceived as he who must be beaten (killed) for the other managers to attain enjoyment (winning the league). He is the obstacle to enjoyment, and in the way he sentimentally offloads certain players (Keane, Beckham, Ince, for example) he can be seen driving "away his sons as they grow up", as they become a perceived threat.
What does all this have to do with RR you may ask? It is in the difference between the two fathers that we find our answer. Slavoj Zizek describes this in Looking Awry:

The Oedipus myth is based on the premise that it is the father, as the agent of prohibition, who denies us access to enjoyment (i.e., incest, the sexual relationship with the mother). The underlying implication is that parricide would remove this obstacle and thus allow us fully to enjoy the forbidden object. The myth of the primal father is almost the exact opposite of this: the result of the parricide is not the removal of an obstacle, enjoyment is not brought fully within our reach. Quite the contrary - the dead father turns out to be stronger than the living one. After the parricide, the former reigns as the Name-of-the-Father, the agent of the symbolic law that irrevocably precludes access to the forbidden fruit of enjoyment.

The point being that at the exact moment that Benitez can see his desire being fulfilled, when he can finally grasp full enjoyment, he realises (unconsciously) the truth: that that enjoyment is in itself impossible, and thus he sabotages it, so he can continue in his fantasy. Zizek continues:

In the Oedipus myth, the prohibition of enjoyment still functions, ultimately, as an external impediment, leaving the possibility open that without this obstacle, we would be able to enjoy fully. But is already in itself impossible. One of the commonplaces of Lacanian theory is that access to enjoyment is denied to the speaking being, as such. The figure of the father saves us from this deadlock by bestowing on the immanent impossibilty the form of a symbolic interdiction. The myth of the primal father in Totem and Taboo complements - or, more precisely, supplements - the Oedipus myth by embodying this impossible enjoyment in the obscene figure of the Father-of-Enjoyment, i.e., in the very figure who assumes the role of agent of prohibition. The illusion is that there was at least one subject (the primal father possessing all women) who was able to enjoy fully; as such, the figure of the Father-of-Enjoyment is nothing but a neurotic fantasy that overlooks the fact that the father has been dead from the beginning, i.e., that he never was alive, except insofar as he did not know that he was already dead.

Which is why Benitez needs to take aim at Sir Alex at this moment. Sir Alex as the figure of the father has to be reestablished as that which prevents Benitez from enjoying fully, he is giving mythical power in the face of whch Benitez becomes once again powerless. Thus enjoyment is saved, but, at the same time, is kept at a discreet distance, which is of course the only way to save the possibility of enjoyment for "the speaking being".
The very fact that Benitez continuously refers to what he says are "facts" should lead one to suspect that what he says is the precise opposite, that if what he was saying was fact he would not have to be so insistent on the fact, it would be self evident. The fact that he insists on the "facts" proves that we are in the realm of fantasy, and that enjoyment is at stake.
The genius of Sir Alex is in fully assuming the role that he has been given, of the father, which puts everyone else at a disadvantage, and as we continue winning trophies the aura can only increase, for it does seem in reality, as well as in fantasy constructions, that Sir Alex does have a monopoly on enjoyment. Mourinho is an interesting figure in the whole thing, given that during his time at Chelsea he was very much cast in the role of the son who slayed the father, and yet this goes to prove our point, for how much did Mourinho seem to be enjoying himself? The only conclusion being that he would eventually be forced out - the seemingly inevitable enjoyment never coming...