The fire was never brighter in Jose Mourinho’s eyes than when we discussed his side’s dramatic 2-0 win at Anfield in April, which ruined Liverpool’s title hopes and showed Chelsea’s manager at his tactical and psychological best. The finest coaches are dangerous when they feel wronged. Don’t back them into a corner. It was Ferguson-esque.
Up in the TV gantry 90 minutes before kick-off that day, I saw signs that Mourinho and Chelsea were on a mission. In his office at the club’s Cobham training ground this week I tested that theory on him. As he answered I saw the determination of that amazing day return to his features. Chelsea had no intention, he says, of playing “the clown” at somebody else’s party.
“I felt during part of last season that the country wanted Liverpool to be champion,” he starts out. “The media, the press: a lot was to put Liverpool there. Nobody was saying they were in a privileged situation because they didn’t play Champions League. Nobody was speaking about a lot, a lot of decisions that helped them win important and crucial points. And I felt that day was a day that was ready for their celebration.
“I used the word with my players. I said – we are going to be the clowns, they want us to be the clowns in the circus. The circus is here. Liverpool are to be champions.”
I interject: “You weren’t having that, were you?”
He fixes with me with a look: “No.”
There is more to it, though. By refusing to move the game to the previous day, when Chelsea had a Champions League semi-final to prepare for, did Liverpool goad Mourinho’s men into a performance with extra vigour, and so contribute to their own downfall? My interview subject thinks so.
“I knew the process that hangs with the fact that we didn’t play the day before,” he says. “Because we wanted to play the day before – the Saturday, because we played the Champions League semi-final on the Wednesday. And I know exactly step by step. Because we went deep on it. We couldn’t accept it. The title was lost for us, and we didn’t understand how an English team that is representing England in the semi-final [didn’t] have the right to play on the Saturday.
“We went deep. It was a Sky decision? We went to Sky. When people were saying it’s a Premier League decision we went to the Premier League. When people were saying it was a Liverpool issue we went also to smell the situation. And the people who were involved in that decision – they were wrong.
“I think if we play the day before we don’t play with the same spirit we did on the Sunday.”
Wow. Here was the killer line. The casual Sunday outfit – tracksuit and hoodie – the unshaven face. Was it all part of Mourinho’s plan to lull Liverpool and then shut them down? I think my instincts were correct.
I am here, more generally, to find out about Mourinho’s management style, how long he might stay at Chelsea, whether young English players will finally be promoted to the starting XI and how he compares this season’s team to the one he inherited last year. Pleasingly, he speaks of a “moral commitment” to nurture young English talent.
On the longevity issue, I wonder what his response would be if Chelsea offered him a six-year contract extension. “I sign tomorrow. That’s what I want,” he says. “I want to stay in Chelsea and English football because I think I won the right. My wife says many times I won the right to stop when I want. She says I won enough, I did enough, I created a good situation for the family. She says I won the right to do what I want. Unfortunately Chelsea’s not my club. I depend on the club and I depend on the results.”
We spend an hour and 40 minutes discussing all this and more. I start by reminding him that he first came seriously to my attention sliding down our touchline – the Old Trafford touchline – when his Porto side knocked Manchester United out of the Champions League in 2004. I played in that game, 10 years ago, and it helped Mourinho on the path to a Champions League title and the Chelsea job, though he would have made it to the top regardless.
“When I remember that [knee slide], the good thing for me is that last year I did the same,” he says. “So it was not something from a young coach, it was not something from somebody who feels that moment was my moment to change my career. Last year I did exactly the same against Paris Saint-Germain and hopefully this year I will do another one. So this is part of me. This is part of the way I sometimes don’t control the emotion, the happiness.
“But going back to that day, I think I was already in important contact to leave Portugal so it was not because of that game and that moment I had the interest from Chelsea. I was already in on that.”
Passion is a major part of Mourinho’s make-up, and looking back to another phase of his career – as Sir Bobby Robson’s assistant at Barcelona – he remembers joking with his old mentor about a line Sir Bobby took from the Cobbolds at Ipswich. “Bobby Robson used to say – I disagreed with him – when we lose a match, don’t be so sad, just think that in the other dressing room the guys are so happy. Don’t be so sad, it’s not the end of the world.” He pulls a comedy face and makes agonised sounds as he tells the tale.
In his own career he says he has learned to “respect the guy who deserves to win,” and cites the example of Crystal Palace, who inflicted a painful league defeat on Chelsea at Selhurst Park in March: “I wanted to kill my guys. But they [Palace] were amazing. And they needed those points to survive. So, in the middle of my unhappiness, I was mature enough to say – hey, these guys were brilliant, because they did very well. I told the [Palace] guys ‘congratulations’ one by one.”
Since then Chelsea have risen a notch with the additions of Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas, among others. So this is my chance to ask Mourinho about his side’s swift development. Would he trust the team now away at Crystal Palace?
He says: “Yeah, yeah. Last year, I was feeling that we could [win the league] but we were not ready to cope with that pressure.”
Why?
“Because we had certain limitations in the team in terms of tactical qualities, technical qualities, and we were aware of that. My style of leadership is not a style. I try to have a leadership that is adapted to the reality. And last year I was feeling that they were not ready for what I call a pressure leadership – or confrontational leadership. The team as a team was mentally – and even tactically – unstable.
“We couldn’t cope with certain moments of the game. My feeling is that obviously this season we’re going to lose matches, but I don’t think we are going to lose matches because we couldn’t cope with a certain moment, or a specific [part] of the game.
“Last year we had problems when the opposite team was closed in a low block [deep-lying defence], we had problems when the other team was putting direct pressure on us with direct football, we couldn’t cope very well when we had two or three or four consecutive matches, and we had to keep that high focus for one two, three four matches.
“When we were in a good run, I was feeling that the end of the run was coming. You know what I’m saying, because you [he means me] felt that through your whole career. Win today, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. By one side, it’s a habit. By the other, you get tired, because it’s the responsibility every day. My team, last year, with a lot of guys, was not ready for that.
“So my team was unstable. This season we improve footballistically, with Diego and Fabregas, no doubt. When we analyse in tactical and technical terms, they represent the kind of player we need, the kind of second midfield player, the quality of striker. We were lucky to have in the market available for us exactly the style of player we need. But what people maybe don’t realise is that the maturity of our team, the personality of our team, changed a lot.”
I suggest to him that the Premier League cannot be won without strength, power, durability. I’m trying to find out where he sees the balance between artistry and calculation. He shows himself to be a pragmatist, free of rigid philosophies or pre-arranged ideas.
“Obviously talent is so important,” he says. “And how many points are you going to win based on talent? A lot. But how many points do you lose based on the qualities you are speaking about [character, strength]? You lose also a lot of points. So the balance is between the talent you need and these mental qualities, team qualities.”
With this improved and tougher Chelsea side five points clear of Manchester City (and with a trip to Manchester United looming, next Sunday), Mourinho is not rushing to proclaim his team as champions.
“Five points is nothing,” he says. “But I think Man City have everything. I think they have lots of talent and they have lots of physicality. They have more options than everyone else. When you speak about the replica – the second right back - they have replicas for every position. They can cope with injuries, they can cope with suspensions, and the team is basically very stable.
“From Mancini’s time, three years with the same team, players in the best moment of their careers, they don’t have the young players in the development phase, they don’t have players who next season can be better than this season. They don’t have yet – Frank [Lampard] is the only one of that age – the players who next year are going to be one, heavy year older. They are all on the 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 level.
“You tell me. If we keep this team, and they keep that team: in five years time, who is going to be better?
“I say immediately – us, because in five years I’m going to have Hazard, Oscar, Willian, Azpilicueta, Zouma, in the best moment of their careers, and the fantastic players I have now, at 28, 29. A fantastic team with lots of solutions.”
In his second spell at Chelsea, Mourinho is clearly settled, relaxed, and on good terms with his employers. He is a man in control of his team and his players. An example: Eden Hazard, who brings an almost father-son glow to Mourinho’s eyes. He is the player I want to talk most about in this interview, because I have noticed Mourinho challenging him, publicly, to fulfil his talent. He gives me a fascinating insight.
He starts out: “I don’t know if you agree with me, but the profile of the ‘man player’ you found in football 15 years ago is different to the majority of the players you found at the end of your career. They are different kids. I think Eden is out of context at this moment. Why? Because he’s a fantastic kid. He is humble, very humble. Very nice. Very polite. Selfish – zero. Egocentric – zero. He is fantastic.
“I had a conversation with his father. His father told me something that I loved. I don’t think it’s a problem to tell you. He said – ‘I have a wonderful son. He is a wonderful father. He is a wonderful husband. I want him to change, because I want him to be a wonderful player. But I don’t want him to change a lot. I don’t want him to become – and he used the name of two or three players. I just want him to be the same husband, the same father, the same son, with a little but more tenacity, mental aggression, ambition, personal ego. A little bit more. And you are the guy to give it to him.’
“We can never transform these fantastic players and men into a competitive animal, a competitive machine. Not even his father wants [that]. We have just to bring him to a different level, working hard in training, which he’s doing.”
Is Hazard responding to that message?
“Yes, yes, yes. He’s never afraid to play and take responsibility. But it’s not about that. It’s about him saying – today, I have to be decisive. What he says in that press interview, when he says ‘I’m not one of the five top players in the world’ – he can be, but he cannot be in a match where he doesn’t do something in the 90 minutes that makes him decisive.
“The week before against Arsenal, I was on him every day – be decisive. Don’t be happy with doing nice things. Don’t be happy being up and down in the game. You have to do something in the game that wins the game for us. And he did. This is the point with Eden. The talent is amazing, and the human side of him – especially in the modern days, because I work with top players for 30 years – he is not from these times. He’s from the old times.”
A common belief is that Mourinho can’t abide players – wingers especially – not tracking back. It is more complicated than that, he maintains: “I had some guys in my career – they didn’t want to [defend]. You try to build something behind them to protect. His [Hazard’s] problem is not that. He wants. The only problem is to be focused during the 90 minutes and understand when he has to, and when he doesn’t have to.
“I always say to him – you look to the situation. Sometimes you don’t need to [track back]. And you have to learn to read the game to know when you don’t have to. For example, if Matic is completely closed on the left side, and just behind him, I don’t want him to come. I want Matic to cope with the situation. I love to work with him. I love the kid. He will always have my support. He knows my nature. Our relationship is at a point where I can tell him anything. He knows I like him a lot. We are fine because of that.”
