Jose Mourinho's managerial success built on one great irony after another
Jose Mourinho’s career has been ruled by irony.
It was ironic that Mourinho, the young translator who wanted to be a coach and whom Louis van Gaal didn’t quite know what to do with during the Dutchman’s time as Barcelona manager, wound up being a formidable foible in the Premier League almost two decades later – when Mourinho’s Chelsea handily won the league as van Gaal’s Manchester United crumbled.
It was ironic that when van Gaal left Barca in 2000, Mourinho was let go as well, even though he had predated van Gaal. This set him on a course to becoming a manager in his own right – first, briefly, with Benfica, then with Uniao de Leiria, FC Porto and Chelsea, where he hit the big time.
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It was ironic that when Mourinho was passed over for the Barcelona job in 2008, for the benefit of Pep Guardiola, he wound up winning the treble the next year with Inter Milan instead – vanquishing Barca in the Champions League semifinals.
It was ironic that when he finally won La Liga as a manager in 2012, he did so while in charge of Barcelona’s arch-rival Real Madrid, having grown into his old club’s tormentor and chief antagonist.
And it was ironic, too, that when Mourinho finally landed the Man United job – the only position he had ever coveted as badly as the Barca job denied him – it was in the season right after he’d been fired in his second stint at Chelsea, the first time Mourinho had truly failed in his long and distinguished career. For years he had been angling to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson at United – with the Barcelona bridge now not just burned but napalmed – only to be passed over for David Moyes and his old mentor van Gaal, whom he would now succeed and surpass.
It may well prove ironic that the greatest accomplishment of Mourinho’s career – save, perhaps, for winning the UEFA Cup and Champions League in back-to-back years with Porto – will be turning Manchester United around, if he manages. And that he will have done so after the mystique of invincibility surrounding him for all these years was finally and rudely quashed by a locker room revolt at Chelsea that resulted in the worst Premier League title defense in league history and Mourinho’s first-ever dismissal as a manager.
Because the man who had so very famously announced himself as “a special one” upon his arrival in London in 2004, had indeed proved to be something along those lines. He was hardly infallible, and he didn’t win everything, but his track record of making teams much better than they had been before he got there was remarkable. And he always won something. Two league titles and that European silverware at Porto, in addition to a domestic cup. Two league titles and an FA Cup at Chelsea. Two league titles, the domestic cup and the Champions League at Inter. La Liga and the Copa del Rey at Real. A third league title in his second spell at Chelsea.
Mourinho is a world-class tactician, a solid talent evaluator and a passable man manager – he seems to fall out with almost as many players as he meshes well with, and his teams tend to get fed up with him after a few years. His shtick, however, his core competency, is the brashness. The outlandish pronouncements and the mind games and the grandstanding are all part of that. The feeling that he was, indeed different, maybe even special, is what set him apart. But that only works when you can back it up with results.
And on that score, Mourinho got dinged last season. When Chelsea’s players checked out, they also ripped down the veil covering up their Portuguese manager’s shortcomings.
On Sunday, Mourinho returns to Stamford Bridge for the first time since he was let go by Chelsea last December. He doesn’t have United back on the rails yet, after most of a failed season under Moyes, a few games under Ryan Giggs and two wholly underwhelming years under van Gaal. After starting the league with three straight victories, the Red Devils have won just one of their next five. Their 4-2-2 record is good for seventh place, five points off co-leaders Manchester City, now managed by professional nemesis Guardiola, and Arsenal. With just 13 goals, United’s front line is still sort of sputtering, a major issue under van Gaal.
Of Mourinho’s four marquee signings, Eric Bailly has been a revelation in central defense, and veteran Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been pleasantly surprising in his continued effectiveness. But playmaker Henrikh Mkhitaryan has barely seen the field. And fellow midfielder Paul Pogba, now the most expensive player in the sport’s history, has blown hot and cold – mostly cold, actually.
United now plays with a clear and coherent idea, something it hasn’t had since Ferguson finally retired and created the power vacuum that took so long to fill. But the Red Devils don’t look like convincing title contenders this season.
But perhaps that’s also true because Mourinho’s image and reputation haven’t quite been restored yet. Meanwhile, under Antonio Conte, Chelsea has looked far sharper, albeit just two points better than United. The Italian has done it with largely the same squad, as none of the key signings have had an outsized impact on his new team. That doesn’t exactly help Mourinho’s legacy with the Blues and suggests that he was the problem as much as his players’ attitudes.
So it seems the rehabilitation of Manchester United and Mourinho are now aligned and will have to coincide. And it would take another significant leap forward with a win at Chelsea on Sunday.
A few years ago, when Mourinho was unblemished and United was still one of the best clubs in the world, he wanted to be its manager. Now that both have fallen from their pedestals, he finally gets to make his mark on the club. And that’s kind of ironic as well.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.
