MOURINHO'S HONOUR ROLL
PREMIER LEAGUE
It looks as though the magic might be running out for Jose Mourinho but there is no doubt that he has been one of the most successful head coaches in European club history. That level of success might be out of reach at Tottenham, but it’s worth looking back at just how successful Mourinho has been in the past. PORTO After winning the domestic cup and the league title on two occasions, Mourinho also put together one of the best Porto teams in the club’s history and won not only the UEFA Cup in 2003 but also the Champions League a year later. CHELSEA His success in Portugal earned him a big move to England, where he took over at Chelsea. With back-to-back Premier League titles and a personality that enamoured the British media, Mourinho became one of the biggest names in the sport. He also added a few domestic cup titles to his resume. But failure on the European stage and a falling out with owner Roman Abramovich saw him sacked in 2007.
REVERSAL OF FORTUNES FIRST HE WAS THE SPECIAL ONE, THEN HE WAS THE HAPPY ONE. NOW? JOSE MOURINHO MIGHT BE THE STALE ONE. DAN ROBERTS LOOKS AT TOTTENHAM’S EUROPA LEAGUE FAILURE AND HOW IT CONTRIBUTED TO MOURINHO’S SPURS SACKING…
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ith just a few weeks to go before Christmas last year, Tottenham Hotspur sat at the top of the Premier League. The upcoming game against Liverpool was billed as a possible title decider or, at the very least, a test of whether Spurs could go all the way this season. A few months later the north London club’s season had effectively fallen apart, and manager Jose Mourinho was out of a job. That the axe fell the day after the announcement of the Super League and Spurs’ involvement in it may have been fortuitous – or not. Would chairman Daniel Levy have timed Mourinho’s departure to deflect attention from the most divisive venture in European football? It came in the week of Tottenham’s EFL Cup Final fixture against Manchester City, and victory there might have strengthened Mourinho’s position. As it was, some disastrous Premier League results – and performances – between Christmas and Easter saw the club fall down
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SOCCER360 MAY • JUNE 2021
the table. But crashing out of the Europa League to Dinamo Zagreb was arguably even worse. Evidently, progression in the EFL Cup wasn’t enough to save Mourinho and being knocked out of Europe in the manner they were led to real questions over the team, the future of its star players and whether Mourinho was the man to lead Spurs back into contention. Levy answered that point emphatically. The ‘Special One’ has won more than most at the very top of the game, at some of the biggest clubs in Europe. But there has always been criticism of his methods and his tactics. Has his style of coaching and management become a relic of the past? And what’s next for him? Spurs were never really fancied to win the Premier League this season, but an excellent start to the campaign saw just one defeat in the first 12 games. Even though they then lost to Liverpool, there was still a belief that Tottenham might be able to qualify for the
ABOVE (MAIN): A few weeks before Christmas, Tottenham were top of the league…a few months later, Jose Mourinho was out of a job ABOVE (SMALL): Jose Mourinho has been criticised for overly defensive tactics and a toxic relationship with the players
INTER By the time the 2008-09 season came around Jose was in Serie A with Inter. He immediately won the Scudetto but failed again in the Champions League. That was remedied a year later when he followed another Serie A triumph by lifting the biggest cup of them all, beating Bayern Munich in the final. Add in a Coppa Italia and it was an historic treble-winning season for the Nerazzurri. REAL MADRID The ‘Special One’ could seemingly do no wrong and left Italy to take over at Santiago Bernabeu. But the expensively assembled Real Madrid squad he inherited had been underperforming in recent years. Mourinho was unable to turn the tide around completely, winning just one league title and a couple of domestic cups in four years. European glory evaded him and he was allowed to leave in 2013 after a trophy-less season.
Champions League again, at the very least. But performances slipped and results followed, especially as 2020 rolled into 2021, and it became a struggle to qualify for Europe at all. That would be bad enough but in the context of the Europa League debacle in Zagreb back in March, Spurs’ fall from the summit has led to genuine questions about Mourinho’s management and his future. To recap: Spurs breezed into a two-goal first leg lead in a comfortable home win with two goals from captain Harry Kane. The second leg in Croatia was never going to be straightforward, but the gap in quality between the squads and the lack of home fans should have helped Spurs into the last eight. Mourinho, to his credit, did warn his players that the tie was not over, but an insipid display followed and a hat-trick for Mislav Orsic – including a third goal where he waltzed through the Spurs defence – saw Tottenham crash out of a tournament they should have been thinking about winning. And then the floodgates opened, as whispers of criticism about Mourinho’s Spurs tenure gave way to a torrent of disapproval. It had been widely reported that Mourinho’s contract did not include a break clause, which reportedly made sacking the Portuguese – and his backroom team – a very expensive
