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“Arsene Wenger is a specialist in failures” – Only one manager in football has the mindset to extend such a courtesy, when the Frenchmen was taking charge of his 1000th game in the Premier League.
No prizes for guessing this one. I am talking about The Only One in football. Yes, you have guessed it right. I am talking about Jose Mourinho. The words popping out of your head when you hear this name include every tag where you can portray him negatively. Arrogant, Self Obsessed and Controversial are the first ones to come out of your mouth with a hurl of abuses. You give it a little more thought. It is then, that words like a Master Tactician or rather a Winner hits you.
He has a plethora of tags associated with him and believe it or not, he has delivered on every one of them. Self proclaiming himself as The Special One, a champion in playing mind games, delivering under pressure are some of his key traits. His touchline antics, his famous eye poking incident, his outbursts and his allegations have always marred him. Controversies and The Special One come hand in hand. He wants the spotlight; rather he is built up for it.
He gets it all when just before a crunch game you will hear him say- “Chelsea are out of the title race.” Then you see his teams take the pitch and bang, they are humiliating their opponents, or rather the match ends up in his favour. For him a game is not over until it is over. Chelsea reaching the semi-final of the Champions League is a classic example of Jose Mourinho.
Going two goals down in the first leg, everyone believed Chelsea’s European adventure to be over. Boy, they should not have been too eager to judge The Blues. Out they came in the second leg from the jaws of death and Laurent Blanc would not have believed, his French honeymoon is over. Chelsea have knocked out PSG from the Champions league despite them have a two goal advantage.
He envisions a range of plays before a game, planning for his opponents every move. It has not worked out on few occasions, but then those occasions come very occasionally.
Chelsea has played with ultra defensive formations, parked the bus whenever required. They have played negative and dirty football when vital points where necessary to be scooped out. They have also played attacking football combining the trio of Hazard, Oscar and Willian. He had the capability to bench and sell a player of the caliber of Juan Mata. Ask Saint Iker about benching; he is the one who knows it all.
He does everything, but one thing he never forgets is winning. Personally, I myself have no love or respect for the brand of football which he deploys, but then it ends up on his side. He also has had his shares of disappointments. Though he delivered Madrid a League title, yet his appointment was for the sole purpose of them chasing an obsession, the La Decima.
His reign at Madrid became famous for his eye poking incident and benching of club icon Iker Casillas, apart from his touchline antics. Also, his allegations on Barcelona and UEFA went beyond measures.
In spite of every artistic move he manages to pull off, the fact still remains that he is one of the four coaches to have won a league title in four different countries. The Portuguese League and Champions League with Porto, the English Premier League with Chelsea, the Treble with Inter Milan, the La Liga with Real Madrid, say all about his achievements.
The season is closing in. The marathon has but a few kilometers left to be covered. England and European glory can be his. Can Mourinho pull off another sensation and silence his critics yet again. There are still a few moments left for the finale. Sit back and observe what special has the special one got in store this time.
