He is a student of the Clive Woodward approach, the aggregation of marginal gains. Anyone, he believes, can be coached into a winning team. Indeed, when he arrived at Chelsea, he told his star-struck new employer that none of the stellar names on the shopping list would be required. The only big name needed at the club was his own: Jose Mourinho. The coach was all that mattered.
Yet, here are Barcelona insisting that it is the players who produce victory. Of course, we all know at the back of our mind that their transcendent midfield has been coached incessantly since its members were barely able to walk, yet the consensus is that there is something pure, natural, unsullied about them. This is the joyful manifestation of pure football. We speak of a Barca of Iniesta, Xavi and Messi, not Sep Guardiola. How many times is the idea that anyone could coach this team to success proposed?
For Mourinho, that is heresy. To be obliged to watch the team of the player relentlessly get the better of the team of the coach, no matter how much he studies and plans, cuts to the heart of his belief. On Wednesday night he saw his very purpose being dismantled. And clearly it hurt. Almost as much as having someone’s finger shoved in your eye.