Above left and right
Celebrating the win
over Barça that “put
Chelsea on the map”
“I’d been struggling with injury and Jose told me, ‘You’ll be playing,
but I’m going to announce a different team’,” Damien Duff told FFT.
The winger started instead of Eidur Gudjohnsen and quickly set up
a crucial away goal. Didier Drogba was sent off as Barcelona came
back to win 2-1, but the result kept Chelsea in the tie.
“It was a tactical match because of Mourinho’s smartness,” says
Glen Johnson, who came on as a substitute that night. “He arrived
with a bang. He instilled massive confidence in everyone. That’s why
we blew the Premier League away that year: if you get good players
believing they’re good, they’re going to be unstoppable.
“If I could pick one thing that impressed me, it’s how he delivered
meetings: straight, simple and clean-cut. He knew exactly what he
was going to say. He was very good at setting up a team against an
opponent who were favourites, with your backs against the wall.”
He was very good at getting under Barça’s skin, too, jibing at their
European Cup record and griping about a supposed conversation
between coach Frank Rijkaard and referee Anders Frisk at half-time
in the first leg. “When the game is finished, the next one has already
started,” Mourinho once said. Frisk received death threats and soon
announced his retirement. UEFA were furious. So was Rijkaard.
Rattled by the mind games, Barça fell 3-0 down within 20 minutes
in the second leg, to a Chelsea side rampant on the counter-attack.
In a manic first half at Stamford Bridge, Ronaldinho brought it back
to 3-2 with a penalty and a magical toe punt, and Barcelona were
winning on away goals – until John Terry headed Chelsea through.While Rijkaard and players jostled with stewards at full-time, Jose
raced onto the pitch and jumped onto the back of 24-year-old Terry,
his captain. For human behaviour expert Desmond Morris, that was
a telling insight into the nature of that relationship.
“I disagree with the portrayal of Mourinho as a father figure,” he
explained. “He’s more like an elder brother – you couldn’t imagine
Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger jumping on a player’s back.”
Chelsea didn’t lift the trophy that year, denied in the last four by
an infamous ghost goal at Anfield, but the Barça tie was arguably
the first time they’d beaten one of Europe’s elite in the Champions
League. When they’d reached the semi-finals under Claudio Ranieri
a year earlier, their biggest scalp had been domestic rivals Arsenal.
“The Barcelona win put us on the map, because they’d been one
of Europe’s top teams for many years,” says Johnson. “The fact we
could land a punch on them proved we deserved to be at that level.
We were probably the best team in Europe at that time.”I nTER V S BARCELOn A 2010
“If you have a Ferrari and I have some small car, I have to
puncture your tyres or put sugar in your petrol tank”Five years later, Mourinho was back at the Camp Nou – stood alone
in the stadium chapel, weeping uncontrollably. Minutes earlier, he
had experienced possibly the most emotional moment of his career;
the moment that perhaps defines him above all others. He had just
helped Inter to their first European Cup final since 1972.
The Nerazzurri were on course for their fifth consecutive Scudetto,
but in that time they had progressed no further in the Champions
League than the quarter-finals – ‘a psychological wall’, as Mourinho
put it. He recruited the players he needed to challenge for glory
in Europe: Zlatan Ibrahimovic had been lured to Barcelona
but in came Samuel Eto’o, Wesley Sneijder and centre-back Lucio,
whom Mourinho turned into a pure defender.
“Jose didn’t like it when I took the ball and dribbled forward,
which had always been my style,” reveals the Brazilian, smiling. “To
this day, I still thank him for his advice. At Inter, I managed to get
into FIFA’s best XI of the year. The way he pushed me was
responsible for that. He’s the best manager I’ve ever had.”
As with Baia at Porto, Mourinho was successful in exercising
control over his squad.
“Mario Balotelli had a big argument with Mourinho during
training – they were cursing each other,” Lucio explains to
FFT. “Mourinho said, ‘Until he comes to my room and
apologises, I’ll leave him out of all matchday squads
from now on.’
“Balotelli refused, and that situation lasted for a couple
of months. We were always encouraging Balotelli toThe manager of Spurs’ last-16
opponents this season, Julian
Nagelsmann, had been a first team
coach for only a few weeks when he
was initially likened to Mourinho.
The current RB Leipzig supremo’s
playing career was ended by injury at the
tender age of 20. By 2012, when he was
still only 25, he had become
Hoffenheim’s assistant. “I only
experienced him as a coach for four
weeks, but it was enough to give him a
nickname – Mini Mourinho,” revealed
former Germany goalkeeper Tim Wiese,
who was impressed by Nagelsmann’s
meticulous methodology.
At 28, he became the Bundesliga’s
youngest-ever manager and guided
Hoffenheim to their first Champions
League qualifying tie – against
Liverpool two seasons ago – then
to the group stage last season.
This term, he’s steered Leipzig
to the knockout rounds for the
first time. He was even linked with
Spurs before Jose’s
appointment. And
he’s still only 32.BEWARE THE MIn I -MOU
Standing in Jose’s way: a manager who was at school when Porto triumphed in 2004
JOSE
MOURInHO