Image courtesy of http://www.chelseadaft.org/
The Special One is one of the most heralded managers the sport has ever seen. He’s tenacious, he’s controversial and he’s got an insatiable appetite for winning.
Sounds like I’m describing Sir Alex Ferguson don’t it? Well, that’s the type of company Jose Mourinho belongs with. He has that winning DNA all great champions have.
Of course, Fergie has won more titles and is perhaps the greatest manager the game has ever seen, but the accolades Mourinho has been racking up over the past decade or so have been unprecedented. His been successful everywhere he has gone. And now he finds himself at the biggest club of all — Real Madrid, and the end of his three-year stint coming to a bitter end.
Well, if you think about it, you’ll find that his stay at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu hasn’t been a complete flop. He won the Copa Del Rey in his first season (beating Barcelona in the Final), winning La Liga by breaking all sorts of goal-scoring records in his second season and now he finds himself in yet another Copa Del Rey final.
Oh and did I forget to mention his taken Los Blancos to the Semi-finals of the Champions League each year since his arrival?
This begs the question, why leave now?
The answer is rather simple. The Special One wants to be loved, and he isn’t feeling the love in the Spanish capital. Plus, there is certainly no shortage of suitors licking their chops at the prospect of luring Mourinho to their clubs. But as Mourinho himself famously stated in a press-conference after Madrid’s Champions League exit, “There are clubs in England that love me; especially one.”
That one is Chelsea Football Club.
The Blues are rumoured to be in for Mourinho with interim manager Rafa Benitez set to end his stay in London come the end of the season. But why would Mourinho go to a washed-out Chelsea team who are evidently a shadow of their old self?
Reigning European Champions, you say. Well, that was a historic three-game run which saw Didier Drogba drive Chelsea through the semi-finals all the way to victory in Munich. And let’s not forget Lionel Messi’s penalty miss amidst an array of awful misses from both Bayern Munich and Barcelona.
Yes, they won it. Well done — but it’s not happening again. Drogba’s gone and the likes of Demba Ba and Fernando Torres are miles away from his quality. You’re going to have to pull a rabbit out the hat to convince me why it makes sense for Mourinho to leave perhaps the most talented squad in Europe to join a Chelsea team battling for a place in next season’s Champions League.
Go ahead, give it a try.
