MN4: Jose Mourinho, Chelsea, Topps Match Attax Extra 2014-15

Today is our first Twitterversary and to celebrate we thought we’d subject you all to another collaborative post. Once again we’ve decided to go with some metaphorical yeast extract but this time we’ve gone into the dugout rather than the middle of the park/Strictly ballroom/punditry studio. In 2004 the ever patient Roman Abramovich dispensed with the services of the avuncular Claudio Ranieri and replaced him with the brash, combative and handsome Portuguese upstart who had led Porto to Champion’s League glory the following season. Seventeen years and six clubs later Jose Mourinho is still doing Jose Mourinho things albeit currently at the Job Centre. For the three of us yet to see our clubs managed by The Special One there’s a lot of admiration and amusement which you can enjoy below (as well as the mental imagery of the man himself and a substitute goalkeeper taking the roles of Danny and Sandy from Grease). However, for Mat Jolin-Beech one thinly veiled comparison to another chatty manager wasn’t enough to exorcise his demons of Mourinho’s time at Old Trafford. Shall we start there? Over to Mat.

Jose Mourinho. The Special One. The Happy One. The Grumpy One. And now the Mature One. Porto, Chelsea, Internazionale, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur have all had the joy of the Portuguese manager being at the helm.

Now, I was thinking of what to write that wasn’t just a moan about the dreary, dull, boring, staid, slow, ponderous, profligate, moany, flaccid, mind-numbing football he brought to Old Trafford as our post-Fergie struggles continued. Back in 2003 and 2004, Mourinho was the bright young thing. Taking Porto to the UEFA Cup and then to the Champion’s League title the following season. His celebration at the Theatre of Dreams, sliding down the touchline now infamous. Sadly, he never repeated this enthusiasm when in charge there. He was de rigueur. En vogue. A tactical genius – and snapped up by Chelsea to lead the Abramovich era.

Wind forward almost two decades, he is now in charge of Tottenham Hotspur, languishing down in mid-table mediocrity, and far from Europe’s top table. Not only that, but as I write, his job is reported to be under threat after a run of five defeats in six Premier League games. The only crumb of comfort, St Totteringham's Day appears to be postponed again this year but that is due to Arsenal’s incompetence rather than Spurs’ brilliance.

In a recent interview, Mourinho was somewhat humble, saying he is not the manager he once was.  Has the ego been broken? No. He said that his experience will mean he will turn this poor run of job threatening form around, and spur Tottenham back towards a European place. However, I think he must have been a reader of this little blog here.

Cast your mind back to my post on Old Big ‘Ead himself, Brian Clough. That was not about the glory days he had, taking Nottingham Forrest to European glory, winning titles, and being the best manager England never had. It was about the fading powers of a great manager, a master tactician falling behind the modern footballing trends of the time. Going from effective management, dragging the most out of a team, to being outdated and old fashioned.

Clough however, at least had the love from the Forest fans. He’d taken that club to new heights. He’d been the media darling/devil and was generally entertaining. Mourinho, having gone from working with the likes of the best player in the world, one Cristiano Ronaldo, to trying to teach Eric Dier to be a centre back. Gone is the glory and the high regard. Gone are those heights of titles from across Europe.  And long gone is the love from fans. Being a spiky individual, prompting player revolts, fan hatred, dismal football and internal turmoil means there is no love lost from any of his previous clubs – bar maybe Porto. 

He is now, even by his own admission, a dinosaur in a modern, high tempo, high pressing, highly technical game. Parking the bus no longer works and will not win fans over when beating Arsenal to eighth is all you achieve.  Is it too harsh to say he’s now a washed-up has-been? No. it is not. The miserable, awful, ponderous football he served up at United means I will not argue against that. Over to Emlyn for something slightly more upbeat.

Ever since he first arrived in England, I was a fan of Jose Mourinho. He was genuinely funny, and inspired any number of chants, parodies and memes. As a Reading fan there have been very few meetings between his sides and the club, however, one of them contained one of the most infamous incidents in recent history.

The first time that Reading faced a Mourinho side was October 2006, in Reading's first foray into the Premier League. Making his first ever start in the top flight that day was winger Stephen Hunt, and it took only fifteen seconds for him to make an impact in the game; unfortunately, the impact was that of his knee into the onrushing goalkeeper Petr Cech's skull.

Cech crawled to the sideline and referee Mike Riley immediately beckoned on the club doctor. Although Cech was responsive the impact had fractured his skull. Cech was a triplet, and it was later ascertained had a thinner skull than usual as a result. The impact had forced fragments of bone towards his brain, and the doctor rapidly concluded that an emergency ambulance was needed. Cech was taken to hospital first in Reading, and subsequently to neurosurgeons in Oxford. Over the course of several hours, doctors cleared the bone fragments and eventually used two metal plates to repair Cech's skull. The operation was a success. However, this was not to be the end of the matter for Mourinho.

As sickening as this collision was, it wasn't the last change between the sticks; late in the game, reserve goalie Carlo Cudicini leapt past Ivar Ingimarsson, only to find Ibrahima Sonko on the other side, resulting in a sickening collision with the towering defender which knocked him unconscious. The ever popular John Terry took over in goal, and was able to ensure the last thirty seconds or so saw no further goals, and Chelsea won 1-0. Hunt, who had not been booked for the challenge on Cech in the opening seconds of the game, was named man of the match.

In the aftermath of the game, a furious Mourinho accused both the Reading staff and South Central Ambulance Service of delaying Cech being taken to hospital. Mark Ainsworth, in charge of the service that day, refuted this strongly on television, saying "He’s passionate, and he was upset about what happened to his goalkeeper... Chelsea have never apologised. But they got the facts wrong". There followed arguments about when an ambulance was called, and further recriminations about the challenge itself.

Mourinho has always excelled at creating a siege mentality among his players, at least during the early part of his club tenures; and it's possible he was simply trying to foster this within his squad. Some years later, Hunt recalled bumping into him in Harrods; apparently, there was no mention of the incident and Jose seemed genuinely pleased to see him. However, Hunt was booed any time he subsequently played against Chelsea, and Sonko received death threats for his part in Cudicini's injury.

Mourinho's a complex character, and for every fantastic performance or comical interview, there's a bizarre put down of his own players, or outspoken comment. He'll rightly go down as one of the legends of the game, and as much as he can be a complete tosser at times, I still chuckle watching him discount fighting Sam Allardyce, discussing where to buy the best eggs, or comparing his players to melons. In a post-Covid world, I'm sure all the contributors to this blog will be sat in a pub giggling at his latest antics, and I for one can't wait. Over to Rich.

During the last twelve months the whole world has been in some form of quarantine/lockdown scenario to help stem the Coronavirus pandemic (unless you live in Brazil, in which case you were told to “stop whining” and go about your daily business) and with this in mind, there was only one place my contribution to this piece could go: José Mourinho’s dog. 

Back in 2007, long before internet people with a penchant for tin foil headgear thought that Bill Gates was trying to ascertain their Nectar card number via a global vaccination programme he had no involvement in, the news broke that José Mourinho was arrested and cautioned in a row over his pet dog. The story goes that José had taken his dog on holiday to Portugal and once their sight seeing trip was over, had returned to Blighty without the canine being vaccinated. Animal Welfare and the police were mightily pissed off about this and rocked up at José’s house wanting an explanation and to quarantine his Yorkshire terrier. Unluckily for them, José wasn’t in as they’d gone round for a chat on the same night as the Chelsea Player of the Year awards. 

“Hang on a minute love, I’ll give him bell now and see if he’s free. He’s only at some awards thingy. They’re probably on to the disco by now anyway and our José isn’t really one for dancing...” Mrs Mourinho almost certainly didn’t say to the police as she called her husband to let him know what was going on. However the conversation went, it worked as José binned off dancing to the Grease Megamix with Hilario to head home and sort the problem out. 

Once back at his house, Mourinho was in discussions with the police where he explained that the dog had never gone away, that it’d been vaccinated in England and that the whole thing was upsetting his kids. José then said that he had to take an urgent phone call and went outside through the back door with the dog. He returned fifteen minutes later, through the front door, without the dog. Quite understandably the now annoyed copper asked where Mourinho had been and where the dog had gone. José replied, as only he could: “I’m the invisible man...” News reports at the time suggested that the Special One had called his chauffeur and had arranged for the dog to be whisked away in a limousine. There was also a rumour doing the rounds that he had placed the dog over the neighbour’s fence and that it had run away to freedom. Whoever came up with that story was probably thinking of Lassie though. 

Anyway, there isn’t much point to me telling this anecdote other than the fact I found it funny at the time. And I find it funny now. And I bloody love José Mourinho. Over to Manny.

As anyone who has endured the more recent incarnations of Football Manager will know perhaps the hardest part of the game is keeping your charges happy and focused. This is one of the many reasons I have had much more fun signing Christopher Wreh and David Ginola for Leyton Orient on Championship Manager 97/98 than I did trying to tailor a specific training regime for an ageing Shaun Maloney.

The Special One seems to have faced similar struggles in his managerial career. Despite Dele Alli’s obvious talent Mourinho seemed to find it impossible to fit him into his Tottenham side regardless of the poor results and performances Spurs have churned out. Similarly it must have been with great relish that Luke Shaw saw his former manager’s side capitulate against Manchester United a few weeks back considering how much time Mourinho spent blaming United’s underperformance, the outbreak of Covid-19 and the Franco-Prussian War on the left back’s perceived lack of fitness.

That being said there are some players that Mourinho has forged a special bond with. Didier Drogba was signed for the Blues by the manager on two separate occasions. Having brought Ricardo Carvalho with him from Porto to Stamford Bridge, Mourinho subsequently stumped up £6.7m to bring the defender to his Real Madrid side. It hasn’t always been through the transfer market that he has shown this loyalty. The unique brand of shithousery Mourinho developed at Manchester United (outlined by Mat above) relied heavily on his use of Belgian elbow merchant Marouane Fellaini. While these three players were first team regulars under Mourinho’s management it’s fair to say they didn’t quite experience the levels of dedication that was shown to a third choice keeper.

As Emlyn has clearly shown us earlier Chelsea under Mourinho were blessed with goalkeeping talent but this did not stop him bringing Henrique Hilario over to England from Porto at the earliest convenience for both parties. During eight years in London the Portuguese keeper only played twenty Premier League games but proved to be an able deputy when called upon. So much so that, ahead of the 2007 FA Cup final Mourinho hinted that Hilario might make an appearance at the first showpiece event at the new Wembley Stadium despite Petr Cech and Carlo Cudicini both being fit. Then again Mourinho was suggesting that Hilario’s form in front of, rather than in, goal in training meant that he might be the solution to a minor injury crisis in the attacking third. Moreover, selecting Hilario would also spare Mourinho from having to pick Andriy Shevchenko whom the manager had made it clear was really only there to appease Roman Abramovich rather than because of his infamous goalscoring pedigree. Sadly Hilario didn’t make it onto the hallowed Wembley turf (losing myself and Emlyn a few quid in the process) but Drogba’s goal deep into extra time more than covered my losses and secured victory for the Blues.

How long ago this all seems (partly because it was). During his managerial career Jose Mourinho has won continental and domestic silverware and it would be churlish not to recognise him as one of the greatest football managers of all time. That being said he is currently out of work, enduring his longest barren spell with four years elapsing since he led Manchester United to Europa League triumph and has been denied the opportunity tomorrow to lead a trophy shy Tottenham Hotspur side against the seemingly irresistible force of Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final. Who knows if the likeable but inexperienced Ryan Mason can upset the odds against Pep Guardiola but what's for sure is that we haven't heard the last of the Special One.