Mourinho’s not the ‘Special One’, while Mesut knows best

Ouch.

Let’s hope that most of the world’s leading football managers don’t have egos soft as Turkish Delights; since, if they do, they’ll be smarting at the recent words of Mesut Özil.  The brilliant young playmaker, who was at the heart of all of Germany’s best World Cup efforts, explained that he wished to join Real Madrid because he “wanted to work with the best coach in the world, and that is José Mourinho.”  He didn’t name-drop any other managers; the implication is that no-one else came close.

On hearing Özil’s words, there are two managers who may have spluttered most loudly into their cornflakes.  Sir Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola, both of whom can point to impressive recent records in both domestic and European competition, could quite rightly have rattled their trophy cabinets in the young midfielder’s direction.  “Look, Mesut”, they could rant, “we have trebles too”.

Indeed they do; Ferguson won his in breathless fashion in 1999, his Manchester United side defeating Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League final to add to the domestic league and cup titles his club had captured in the previous week. Guardiola, meanwhile, had earned a more leisurely treble in 2008. His Barcelona team’s 2-0 Champions League triumph over Ferguson’s United rounded off a season which felt like a victory lap almost from the very beginning.

Özil didn’t say why he thought Mourinho was better; but, given his recent record, he is certainly hotter. The title of best coach in the world, as Guardiola knows, is a transient one, and he conceded it in last season’s Champions League semi-final when he was outboxed then outfoxed by Mourinho’s Inter over two legs.

Though Mourinho might enjoy the spoils by himself for now, he might readily admit that he shares crucial traits with Ferguson and Guardiola. Each of them have a talent for bringing a dressing-room sharply to heel. It is no coincidence that Mourinho’s arrival in Madrid coincided with the departures of Gutí, the club’s chief dilletante, and Raúl, perhaps Spain’s greatest ever player but one who could not now be guaranteed a game.

In Mourinho’s early days at the Bernabéu there have been vague shades, too, of an eminent Italian manager; not Fabio Capello, but Arrigo Sacchi. Mourinho’s plans to base his team upon an axis of exceptional players from the same nation (Germany’s Özil and Sami Khedira) recalls Sacchi’s AC Milan of the late Eighties, with its trio of magnificent Dutchmen: Frank Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten.

There is something of Sir Alex Ferguson, too, in Mourinho’s recruitment strategy. Vital to Inter’s glory last season was their acquisition of Diego Milito from Genoa, a forward who had proven himself in the top-flight but who lacked the appropriate stage for his talents. Milito’s hire mirrored that of Ferguson’s purchase of Aston Villa’s Dwight Yorke in 1999. Both signings were questioned at the time, if not quietly ridiculed, but they totted up sixty goals between them in their first seasons at the San Siro and Old Trafford, leading their teams to their first European titles in generations.

And now Mourinho, with a team young and hungry for championships, advances upon Barça’s castle, wishing to relieve them of their La Liga crown.  As he approaches Guardiola’s gates, he is spurred by a desire similar to that felt by Ferguson in his early years at United, where the Scotsman sought to “knock Liverpool off their fucking perch”.  Meanwhile, the equally suave Guardiola will be busy making his own plans, as David Villa, his own superb summer buy, plays keep-ball with Xaví on the castle lawn.  And, as the Spaniard greets the arrival of this most threatening of challengers, he can tell himself that Mourinho – far from being original, or “the Special One” – is merely a throwback of the greats who have come, and won, before him.

(Photo: Getty Images)

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