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“Please don’t call me arrogant, I’m European champion, and I think I’m a special one.”
Not even a full press conference in as Chelsea manager, and Jose Mourinho was at it again. The man the world had heard whispers of, had now finally announced his arrival in the big leagues, and how. Not many envisioned that the ‘Special One’ tag was here to stay and in the coming years, he comprehensively justified just why he was the Special One.
Jose Mourinho’s love affair with football started at a very tender age, watching his father Felix Mourinho play professional football for Os Belenenses and Vitoria de Setubal. In the coming years, Mourinho travelled to watch his father’s weekend matches, and also started scouting opposition teams. He then tried out for Belenenses’ youth team, but chose not to become a professional after he was deemed “not good enough”.
A story goes that Mourinho’s mother then enrolled him in a business school. He dropped out on his first day and decided to shift his attentions to becoming a coach, and joined the Technical University of Lisbon to study Sports Science. As a physical education teacher, Mourinho excelled in his diploma studies, eventually becoming the youth team coach at his hometown team Vitoria de Setubal. From there he earned his stripes and climbed up the hierarchy, eventually accepting the role of a translator for Sir Bobby Robson at Sporting Lisbon. So impressed was Sir Robson with the young man’s drive, intensity and grave attention to detail that he would often let him take charge of full training sessions, and also discussed defensive tactics with him before games. As Sir Bobby shifted camps to rivals Porto after being sacked, Mourinho followed him, and led Porto to a few successful seasons. The same formula worked again as Mourinho and Sir Robson moved to Barcelona, winning the Cup Winners Cup in their first season in charge. But when Sir Robson got a offer to manage at Newcastle (his favourite team) Jose decided not to go inspite of Sir Robson promising him that he would step down in a couple of seasons and make him the manager. He stayed on at Barcelona and worked with Louis Van Gaal, as they went on to win the next two La Ligas. It was here that Mourinho’s excellent tactical vision and analysis were nurtured by Van Gaal, a specialist in tactical analysis himself. Van Gaal then bestowed the Barcelona ‘B’ team coaching responsibilities to him.
The rest, as they say, is history. After this initial brush with management, Mourinho’s real chance to manage a top side came with Benfica, replacing Jupp Heynckes at the helm. A season later, he switched to Uniao de Leiria after differences of opinion with Benefica club president Joao Vilarinho forced him to look elsewhere. After leading Vilarinho to their highest ever 5th place finish in the league, he took over as coach at Porto, where his outstanding talent truly came to the fore.
“I promise we will be league champions next year.”
This he proclaimed after leading Porto to a strong 3rd place finish after taking charge midway through the season in January. True to his word, Porto were crowned champions in the 2003 season, losing only 2 times and garnering a record 86 points, and sealing the title 5 weeks before the end of the season. He went on to complete a treble that year, winning the Portuguese Super Cup and the UEFA Cup.
The very next season in 2004, Jose Mourinho spectacularly turned on the style. When Porto scored the winning goal against Manchester United in the dying seconds, Jose sprinted the entire length of the Old Trafford touchline and slid on his knees in utter ecstasy. United fans watched in horror, so did Mourinho’s dry cleaner, but the reverberations of a legacy were being felt in the footballing fraternity. Those little ripples slowly metamorphosized into waves as he led a Porto side considered to be the dark horses to the UEFA Champions League. It was now undisputable; Mourinho did his talking on the pitch too.
But what is intriguing about Jose Mourinho is that his managerial prowess isn’t limited to winning with his brilliant understanding of the game. Mourinho is a stickler for the small things, evident from the fact that Mourinho speaks 6 languages fluently, in a bid to communicate with his players directly. He learnt Catalan under Sir Robson’s tutelage at Barcelona only because he wished to echo the exact same sentiments of his manager, identifying the psychological impetus behind it. He also claimed to have studied Italian 5 hours a day for a month so that he could communicate to the press and his players at Inter in Italian.
That apart, his outspoken demeanor, with confidence bordering precariously on arrogance yet disarmingly witty, serves multiple purposes, according to pundits and players alike. Many of his former players claim that Mourinho is second to none at man management, and his team talks are outstanding to the extent that a positive reaction is almost inconceivable.
Chelsea‘s Dave Hancock told the Daily Mail “Mourinho would be very methodical in training but for me it was the psychology on game day, ‘That’s where I felt he was above anyone else I’d seen. He knew what buttons to press. He was very smart at protecting the players, putting all the emphasis on him.’
This was very much evident from his little pieces of ingenuity so often at show during press conferences. An incident that comes to mind is when a journalist asked Mourinho a tricky question about his rotation policy regarding Arjen Robben, Damien Duff and Joe Cole.
“Why drive Aston Martin all the time, when I have Ferrari and Porsche as well? That would just be stupid,” came the reply.
Hancock goes on to reveal examples of the genius that Mourinho is at his now legendary team talks. In a game against bottom of the table Watford in 2007, Chelsea were drawing 0-0 at Vicarage road. Mourinho came in, and stood in silence for 3-4 minutes. He then took out his piece of paper, started ripping it to shreds and said “Tactics? Tactics? This game bulls***. No tactics.”
He then pointed to his heart, then pointed to his crotch, and said: “The game is about this and this. If you have this and this you win.”
Not surprisingly, Salomon Kalou scored a 90th minute winner in a 1-0 win.
Hancock then recounts a game against Reading, on a rainy night where Chelsea found themselves on the wrong side of a 1-0 scoreline at half time. ‘He matched them versus the player they were playing against. “Tal Ben Haim, you’re a seven, Kevin Doyle is an eight.” Hancock says. Another player: “You’re a six and he’s a seven. If we carry on like this we’re not going to win.”’ In a 5 minute spell after the restart, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba got one each, and Chelsea won 2-1.
Hancock then moves on to an example in the Champions League round of 16 second leg, in Mourinho’s former team Porto.
‘We were 1-0 down to Porto, his old club,’ he says. ‘I thought he was going to go absolutely crazy. But he came in and was just like, “Look everyone calm down.” There was a lot of anxiety between the players, friction, you could feel it.
‘He said, “We’ll go our score the next goal and win 2-1. I promise you. Just relax, keep playing.” We went out, Arjen Robben then Michael Ballack scored, and we won 2-1.’
Chelsea fans will also remember a clip of Mourinho in the dressing room telling his players- “I don’t want to put pressure on you by saying we have to win. But we cannot lose. We CANNOT lose.”
Jose Mourinho’s uncanny ability to know just what to say isn’t just limited to his team talks. Mourinho’s former players swear by him, and inspite of being consummate professionals, are thoroughly attached to the Portuguese. It is evident just how much power he holds, as can be seen when his former players move to the club he switches to. Nuno Valente and Derlei came to Porto after Mourinho left Uniao de Leiria, Maniche came to Porto from Benfica, Paulo Ferriera, Tiago and Ricardo Carvalho followed him to Chelsea from his days at Porto (Ferreira followed him to Porto from his hometown club of Vitoria de Setubal), Carvalho and Essien (on loan) followed him to Madrid. Frank Lampard himself admitted that the only time he wanted to leave Chelsea was after his mother’s demise. His preferred destination that season? Mourinho’s Inter Milan. Didier Drogba too, was linked throughout his Chelsea career with a reunion with his old boss at Inter and at Madrid. Infact, Drogba admitted that his old boss texted him late at night regularly, a shard of the core values which form the bedrock of Mourinho’s coaching philosophy. Some of his other former players also claim that Mourinho texts them before important matches, showing a vastly different side of the tactical genius. But the most touching example of Mourinho’s emotional attachment came after Mourinho won the Champions League with Inter and had confirmed his intentions to move to Real Madrid. As Mourinho drove off in his car from the Giuseppe Meazza, he saw Marco Matterazzi standing outside and asked his chauffeur to stop the car. He then got out of the car, hugged Materazzi and burst into tears, as the 6’5 defender, who was part of Italy’s victorious 2006 WC campaign, could do nothing but reciprocate. Mourinho had once stated “I don’t want special relations with one of them (his players). I hate to speak about individuals. Players don’t win you trophies, teams win trophies, squads win trophies.” A bittersweet moment of irony had shown just how special the special one was to his players.
Mourinho’s other managerial feats are startling too. He has won at least one title with every team he has managed since 2002. From his days at Porto till the time he took charge at Madrid, Mourinho did not lose a single home league fixture, which included a 64 game unbeaten run at Stamford Bridge under his management. He has won the Champions League with 2 different clubs, and has taken 4 different clubs to the semi finals of the Champions League. Mourinho is the 4th manager to win the domestic title in 4 different nations- Portugal, England, Italy and Spain. He moved on from Porto months after winning the Champions League, a feat he repeated after he won the same title with Inter Milan.
Mourinho’s ambitious nature is reflected in his achievements over the years. In his own words-
“If I wanted to have an easy job, I would have stayed at Porto -beautiful blue chair, the UEFA Champions League trophy, God, and after God, me.”
So management feats and consistent success aside, Jose Mourinho’s tactical mastery, psychological superiority and concrete emotional ties with his players are what make him perhaps the best manager in the world. His constant efforts to get better can be best captured in what he told former Chelsea player Adrian Mutu-
“You are already a rich boy, you won a lot of money, you are still in a big contract. So no problem with your future about money, no problem about prestige in your home country. When you go back to Romania you will be one of the kings. But 5 years after you leave football nobody remembers you. Unless you do big things. This is what makes history.”
Jose Mourinho. Truly, the Special One.
