Special One: “…good options”
By: Sam | April 19th, 2008
As clubs wind up their league seasons, boardrooms at the top are abuzz with discussions of who shall manage their club next season. Even managers who do well in the Champions League, or even reach the final, are not safe from sacking in this competitive profession.
Now at least it’s clear that Jose Mourinho will be back in football in 2008.
“I had some good options this month. Some good clubs and some good countries.”
It may surprise many that the Special One has waited this long to settle his fate. But it is important to recognize that there are only half a dozen clubs he would join. There are only a few magical footballing theatres in which he would deign to walk the boards. Don’t be fooled, Mourinho will pick his club.
Since the right spot was not open last summer, it requires an auction atmosphere, where the ex-Chelsea manager maximizes his field and has a clear opportunity to express his full set of demands for control. So no club makes the same mistake he faced under covetous ownership in Southwest London.
What better strategy, then, than to wait until the European league season is over and all the managerial openings are wide? It suggests smart family management, too: Mr Mourinho will have maximized his joy & pleasure at home during his break, not thinking — too much — about football.
The best part of his decision, in my opinion, was to wait out the season because squeezing into a top club in mid-season is so disruptive and it magnifies all the difficulties of an already impossible job. Bravo, Mourinho!
I have speculated upon Inter for the Special One, but that was when I had assumed he had already struck pen to paper. If you recall that while still employed by Roman Abramovic, Mourinho sent out coy messages that he would love to work at Real Madrid. Perhaps you’ll agree with me that Madrid likely remains his first choice — and will be his new platform come August.
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Comments
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Although I agree that Jose is picking and choosing and sensibly biding his time, I reckon there might have been something in his parting deal from Chelsea saying he had to wait untill the end of the season, otherwise he could have joined one of the many clubs that are after him by now!
Posted from
United Kingdom
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I think so too..he definitely had a restriction on him going back to work as a manager in England for this season..I think it makes sense that if he waits until the season’s over,,he will have some more options (actually probably one more option in England…Liverpool
)..I just hope that he doe not end up in Real…they are a thankless bunch there…Posted from
United States -
Whatever may be. But his best years were with Chelsea. Its those 3 years that made him the talk of everyone in football. Forza Jose!!!!
Posted from
India -
Adam-
I have a theory which takes your statement one — or two — steps further: that Man Utd, Arsenal & (perhaps) Liverpool are playing to their high standards now BECAUSE Jose showed that a team can play at a higher level.
We’ll see if this is true if his work in Italy | Spain raise the level of the entire top flight of Serie A | La Liga over a period of time.
Posted from
United States -
HIs best years may well have been at Porto, considering they had a 100th of Chelsea’s budget and were arguably more sucsessful!
Posted from
United Kingdom -
Sam,Rob
I said because, everywhere he will go there will be huge burden of expectations. He will be measured on all together different scale which only few in world have gone thru. At Porto he was some one and at Chelsea he became special one. The transformation is marvelous. He won trophies at Porto. But against best managers and oppositions? No. At Chelsea? Yes. And the biggest achievement he had was enslaving the English media. English media which is considered as worst in the world were slaves of his press conferences. I still remember reading some one highly successful journo’s article on Jose’s conferences, the passes used to be even more rare than CL final tickets. Such was a demand for his PC’s. And what could be the biggest complement than media making him favorite to succeed McClaren. The same media who is considered as worst enemy of English manager.
Thats why I still say his best years with Chelsea. He might have major success at Italy/Germany/SPain. But its in England where he became talk of the town.
Posted from
India
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