Jose Mourinho: Manchester United's loss is Chelsea's gain

When at the end of the last season, a managerial merry-go round was in effect, and David Moyes was being named as the manager of Manchester United, many pundits and fans alike thought that Sir Alex Ferguson had missed the trick. Here he was, on the verge of taking a retirement from the job of managing United, and yet he was managing United. It seemed that years of courting Fergie didn’t help Mourinho’s cause and it all felt a little bit out of place. For once we thought, that surely Mourinho is the only man in the world with a big enough ego to replace Sir Alex.

And then the inevitable happened. Chelsea got the special one and United got the chosen one. The two team have since then been on opposite spirals and no points for guessing which one made the right decision.  Chelsea is an interesting team to watch. Not because of their attacking brand of football but because of the fact that they might implode at any point of time due to various reasons. A club that is owned by a Russian don, managed by self-obsessed and self-claimed Special One, and the biggest player dons in Frank Lampard and John Terry. This has to be a match made in heaven. And yet, day after day, Chelsea go to new zeniths of achievements, the ones that could not have been even dreamed of 20 years ago or even in the time of Zola et all.

This is football driven by money at best. But at the heart of it is a great driving force in the name of Jose Mourinho. Love him or hate him, you can’t ignore him. His tenures at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Chelsea again speaks volumes about his managerial qualities and his quest for perfection not through performances but through results. His tactical genius is second to none. The way he picks his team is a lesson in tactics for all managers out there.

A stand out feature in his management has always been man-management (except maybe the last season in Real Madrid). There has to be a reason why the best players in the world like Sami Khedira, Samuel Eto’o, Terry and Lampard consider him above all. Mourinho has always protected his players from bad media by taking the spotlight on himself. When Chelsea lose, “I put a bad team out there” becomes the post match press conference mantra. When they win, it’s all about the cohesiveness in the team, in a way, shielding his players from the spotlight and instead making them do what he believes in. This is what other managers must learn from the man himself (Yes, I am pointing fingers at you, David).

While Chelsea have been successful even when Mourinho wasn’t in charge, there is a look of inevitability under Mourinho. It is something similar to what United had under Sir Alex. It seems that they simply can’t go wrong. And if they do, Mourinho will put it right in the next game. This is what United needed after the departure of Sir Alex, and this is what they are missing after snubbing Mourinho for the post of Manchester United manager.