Jose Mourinho: The Self-Proclaimed Special One
Jose Mourinho, the 47 year old manager from Portugal, is the self-proclaimed “Special One”. However, he has lived up to this title, with a lot of success in his short managerial career. Mourinho is not a footballer himself; rather he started his career in football, with Sporting Lisbon, as a translator for Bobby Robson, in 1992.
However, soon he became the assistant manager and moved to FC Porto, with Robson. There the duo won two titles in three years. After Porto, the duo went to Barcelona and got considerable success there, in La Liga as well as in Europe.
Mourinho had belief in his abilities, which led him to go his separate way in 1997. He remained in Benfica for a very short period and then joined a side struggling in the league, Uniao de Leiria. Mourinho was the real force behind the team’s fourth place finish in the season and got them a place in the Champions League.
However, Mourinho’s career is replete with accepting challenges one after another. After a little adventure at Uniao de Leiria, Mourinho moved to FC Porto. In his first season in 2002-2003, Mourinho won the league title and the domestic cup with the club.
He also took the team to the final of UEFA Cup, but could not fulfil his European dream. However, in 2003-2004 Season, Jose Mourinho’s Porto retained the league title, but went on to win the Champions League, by beating Monaco 3-0 in the final. At that particular moment, Mourinho came to be regarded as a specialist in the European competitions.
When Chelsea was taken over by the Russian, Roman Abramovich, the coaching position was immediately offered to Mourinho, who accepted it as another challenge. After a drought of 50 years, Mourinho gave Chelsea their first league title in his first season in 2004-2005.
He kept on improving his team, as he won another league title in the proceeding season, while winning an FA Cup title in 2006-2007. However, Mourinho failed to fulfil the dreams of a Champions League title for Chelsea, due to which problems were raised in the Club. So, Mourinho left the Chelsea job, after a poor start to the season in 2007. He remained jobless for almost a year, before joining Inter Milan in June 2008.
Mourinho’s career at Inter Milan was full of success and achievements. He won two back to back Serie A titles. But, the real achievement came during the last season, when Jose Mourinho led the side to an incredible treble, by winning Serie A, Italian Cup and UEFA Champions League.
Thus, his expertise in European competitions was helpful to Inter Milan, who won the Champions League amidst the teams like Barcelona and Real Madrid. His team’s performance against Barcelona, in the Semi-Finals, was really a worth remembering moment in the history of Italian football.
Currently he is on the Real Madrid platform, after having completed the Inter Milan’s challenge. The only problem with the methods of Mourinho is that he is regarded as tactically anti-football. His methods and approach to the game is said to be very defensive, due to which he is barely able to get the desired results. However, undoubtedly he is the only manager who has taught the Europeans a way to beat Barcelona. Mourinho is right in his stance, because there might not be a better way to clinch a victory against the best team in the World.
Jose Mourinho has his strengths as well. The biggest strength of the Portuguese is his media-handling techniques. Mourinho likes to see his face on the front pages of the newspapers, as he is continuously making news, more than any manager or player in the World.
Also, Mourinho uses his media-handling techniques very well, as he is always busy in defending his team and individual players, if some controversy arises. This makes him one of the most lovable managers, whose players are always loyal to him more than they are loyal to their clubs.
The entrance of Mourinho in the La Liga is for a very simple reason. Real Madrid wants to regain their superiority over their archrivals, Barcelona, and during the last season they felt that good players might not do it. Rather, they needed a manager who has already done it, and that is why Mourinho is hired. However, Madrid job would be a real test for the Portuguese, as his style would always be coming in contradiction to the Madrid style of football.
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