Mourinho - out of date but not out of place

Hungary Coach Jose Mourinho's tactics are out of step with the flow of modern football, but he still knows how to bring Roma to the Europa League final.

Italian football and Serie A have witnessed familiar nuances from Jose Mourinho over the past two years. Still the same frowning face as if always carrying some kind of ancient grudge. Still a real person living in the football world but as if stepping out of a fictional movie. Still the demeanor of a "big brother" on the coaching bench, still dominating the press conference room with his psychological manipulation and sarcastic words. Sometimes, Mourinho makes others feel like he is a paranoid person when he insists that his club is the victim of some sinister plot from referees, media and football managers.

Mourinho's familiar frown and unapproachable look during a Roma training session at the Trigoria headquarters in Rome. Photo: Reuters

Mourinho hasn't changed since a decade ago, and his football and winning style haven't changed . Possession was just 28%, just one shot on target compared to 23 for opponents, an expected goal value of just 0.03, and the ball was on the pitch for just 54 minutes despite 14 minutes of added time in total, that was Mourinho's Roma in a 0-0 draw in the second leg of the Europa League semi-final against Leverkusen.

But that result was enough for the 60-year-old coach's team to qualify for the final. It was a victory for the football that Mourinho worships and pursues, as if recalling how he and Inter overcame the most powerful Barca in 2010. The scene at the Bay Arena after the second leg of the Europa League semi-final this time was different from the one at Camp Nou 13 years ago in that Mourinho did not run around the pitch in an arrogant celebration. "I cannot do that in front of people I consider friends, and Xabi Alonso is a friend," the Portuguese coach explained. Alonso was Mourinho's favorite student during his three seasons in charge of Real from 2010-2023, and later became close friends.

The Guardian commented: "Mourinho's Roma won the first leg at home by a narrow margin, so why should they try to play attacking football away from home? You don't have to be Mourinho to understand that, and you would do it if you were Mourinho."

Over the past 15 years, elite club football has shifted towards concepts of ball control and high pressure, meaning playing proactively and with superiority. But Mourinho seems to be standing outside that current of events.

An event in the summer of 2008 transformed Mourinho into the coach he is today . It was when Barca decided to choose Pep Guardiola - a newbie - as head coach, instead of the experienced Mourinho - confirming the Portuguese coach's long-standing suspicion that the Catalan club had never really accepted him, despite his association with them since the late 1990s as an interpreter and then assistant to coaches Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal, that he was just an outsider and that Barca would only hire people who truly belonged to them. This event seemed to turn Mourinho against Barca, against the school of thought that the club propagated: if they or someone else wanted to play with the ball, Mourinho would win without it.

However, the football that Mourinho pursued at the beginning of his career did not necessarily start that way. His Porto, Chelsea and Real Madrid teams all showed more or less flexibility and agility, and at times played attacking football. If Guardiola is considered the most widespread proponent of "Juego de Posicion" or "positional football", Mourinho belongs to this school.

But after that rejection by Barca, Mourinho began to follow a path that was completely opposite to Guardiola's principles. He promoted the motto "the one with the ball always has fear" and was especially loyal to this philosophy since his second term with Chelsea.

The past 15 years, since that summer of 2008, have had their moments. Abandoned, Mourinho could not retreat. He always planned for a day of revenge. The achievements Mourinho achieved with Inter are memorable in their own way. In the second leg of the 2010 Champions League semi-final, Mourinho and his team lost 0-1 with only 10 men on the field and a ball possession rate of 19%, but still reached the final with a 3-2 aggregate victory. That great revenge against Barca was even more important than Mourinho's Real Madrid later winning the 2011-2012 La Liga, ending Guardiola's successful reign with Barca.

Mourinho excitedly ran around Camp Nou to celebrate Inter's 3-2 aggregate victory over Barca in the second leg of the 2010 Champions League semi-final. Photo: AFP

Guardiola may have been exhausted after two years of facing Mourinho in Spain, but the battle has taken a lot more out of the Special One. The last time Mourinho won a domestic title was the Premier League with Chelsea in 2014-15. But he was sacked in the middle of the following season. Then came years of increasing frustration at Man Utd and Tottenham, although Mourinho did not achieve anything at either club.

Mourinho led Man Utd to second place in the Premier League, won the League Cup and Europa League. Man Utd teams after that have not been able to catch up with the 81 points achieved under Mourinho in the 2017-2018 season when they finished second, and have not won another title, before this season's League Cup.

Mourinho also took Tottenham to sixth place, then seventh, by the time he was sacked a week before the 2021 League Cup final. Those may not be impressive results, with Antonio Conte’s Tottenham qualifying for the Champions League the following season. But the chaos the team is experiencing in 2022-23 suggests Tottenham are no better off than when Mourinho left.

The reality over the past 10 years has been that teams only seek Mourinho when they have started to decline, and they ask him to help slow down that process. "After all, hoping to improve the situation is much easier than starting a comprehensive reform process for a club," commented the Guardian .

Mourinho celebrates the 2022 Europa Conference League Cup with Roma after the final victory over Feyenoord 1-0 in Tirana, Albania. Photo: UEFA

The decline of many years seemed to have brought Mourinho to the twilight of his career . He is 60 years old and does not care much about money. This military leader is also no longer as passionate about fighting as before. But football still needs Mourinho, as an old and interesting memory.

The Champions League titles Mourinho won with Porto in 2004 and Inter in 2010 were among the few occasions when mid-table clubs overcame the dominance of the rich. In the current of development, Mourinho is no longer at the forefront of tactics. He has chosen to follow a deliberately old-fashioned path, like a weaver who insists that his cloth is made on a handloom rather than a spinning machine.

Mourinho is now a figure of the past, providing a bridge to old memories, in a modern stream that many sometimes find impossible to keep up with.

In recent weeks, Mourinho has been punished for comments he made about referees, seen an assistant sent off for attacking an opponent, and has also taken a dig at Tottenham fans with a jab at chairman Daniel Levy. But those are the hits that people want to see Mourinho perform, at least for now.

It has been 20 years since Mourinho played in his first European final. That was when his Porto side in the UEFA Cup final wasted time and feigned injuries to beat Celtic in Seville, Spain. Today, Mourinho is in another final, against Roma and the nostalgic Sevilla. This is no longer a top-level game. But Mourinho is still confident that he knows how to get his team to victory, as he did with Roma in the Europa Conference League final last year. And Mourinho still knows how to keep people watching.

Hoang Thong (according to Guardian )

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