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Could Mourinho Be ‘Special’ At Inter?

It would seem almost certain that former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho is ready to throw himself back into the lion’s den of football management. Mourinho, who has been out of work since he left Chelsea in a blaze of publicity 8 months ago, looks like he’s going to try Serie A for size following Mancini’s departure. Whether he’ll be as adored there as he was at Chelsea remains to be seen – the Italians can be a pretty unforgiving lot in defeat. I’m sure that even after their domestic success, it feels a little hollow in the circumstances and the lack of success in Europe compared to AC Milan really grates for Inter – they won’t tolerate further ‘failure’. On the flip side to that though, if he can manage to do what he couldn’t quite achieve at Chelsea, the Nerazzurri will make him feel very ‘special’.

Strangely enough, Mourinho seems to be playing down his ‘Special One’ tag a bit ahead of his new post – well, sort of. As only Jose can, he humbly says he isn’t worthy of being called ‘special’, but only because he regards himself as “a great football manager” instead. Now I’m not even going to argue that his record as a good manager speaks for itself – Champions League victory with Porto, followed by six trophies in three years with us – but how ‘great’ he really is, is yet to be determined.

When you think of ‘great’ managers, it’s names like Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson that spring to mind – the clue being in the title maybe? But whilst Mourinho has proved, without question, that he’s a great tactician and motivator, he’s yet to prove there’s more to his management than his own ambition.

I’m not aiming for a complete character assassination of Mourinho here, because there’s still plenty I like about him, but having had 8 months to sit back and look at where things went wrong at Chelsea and reading his slightly bitter comments in the wake of our Champions League defeat, it’s just interesting to hear what he’s got to say for himself as he heads for the San Siro.

Whether or not he’s ready to drop the ‘special one’ label isn’t all that clear because he says its not necessarily a bad thing – and I personally think he prefers to believe his own hype.  Statements like “I only have strengths. And when I have a weakness I try to hide it”, have Jose written all over them but does he hide his weaknesses as well as he thinks he does? Because although he says “I see myself as a person who is emotionally resilient”, I think this is one area where TSO falls down in the management game (transfer market aside).

Mourinho’s personal ambition is so great it’s not clear whether he loves the beautiful game as much as he does himself. Rather than a desire to win, his style of football reflects his determination not to lose and his verbal spats with officials and opposition are driven by his ego. Before every Champions League game with Liverpool, for example, his fear of being beaten saw much mud slung in Rafa’s direction, only to end up in the mire himself each time. Fortunately for us, Rafa adopted the Mourinho-style big game preparations this season and his personal crusade against Drogba paid dividends – for us.

So, having battled with the self importance of their previous manager and seen him out the door, it’ll be interesting to see how the ego’s at Inter warm to TSO. He’s already pre-warned them by saying “As a manager I’m a very easy person. It’s very easy to work with me because it’s clear and neat – players must be open and ready to follow me” – very pied piper. Let’s just hope Lampard and Carvalho aren’t ready to dance to his tune again!

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