As part of an upcoming project, this journalist has been asking coaches across Europe to name their most influential peers in the game right now. There have been plenty of shouts for Pep Guardiola and Roberto De Zerbi but the list is eclectic.
One former Serie A coach highlighted the work of Rob Edwards at Luton Town. A number of Spanish coaches were drawn to the style Russell Martin has been implementing at Swansea. There was even admiration for the coach of a mid-table team in Japan.
But nobody has yet name-checked Jose Mourinho.
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Jose Mourinho was highly critical of the referee in the Europa League final
Perhaps it is a case of familiarity breeding contempt. But as Mourinho, 60, capped an ill-tempered Europa League final defeat to Sevilla by yelling expletives at the officials in, of all places, the car park, just after he had preached of his pride at his dignity, it made for a sad sight.
This is not new. It has been the near constant soundtrack to his career. Always there with a quote, this perma-grievance is his base state. Never truly beaten. Never less than irked. Forever there with a barbed statistic and an argument to make.
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For Mourinho, the ends have always justified the means. But when victory does not accompany the incendiary antics, what remains? Just the blame game and an insipid display in Budapest. An advertisement for anti-football gone wrong. It was ugly and it failed.
Image: Mourinho walks away after the Europa League final between Roma and Sevilla
Finals are won not played, they say. It is the sort of wisdom that earns nods from the sages populating podcasts lauding high performance. It does not work so well when scuffling around outside the European places in Serie A and losing the final of Europe’s second-tier competition.
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Yes, these latter years have been hard on Mourinho.
If his football career had finished in 2015, following his third Premier League title in two spells with Chelsea, Mourinho would have had a compelling case to be regarded as the greatest manager of them all. Certainly among the most consistently successful.
That Champions League win with Porto. Back-to-back titles with Chelsea. Repeating that feat with Inter but chucking a treble in too. Going to Real Madrid and besting Guardiola’s Barcelona, while setting points and goals records that still stand today in LaLiga.
Image: Mourinho's Roma were beaten on penalties by Sevilla
“It is easy to be a dead comedian, beatified for three hours of material,” Stewart Lee once said of the late Bill Hicks. “The hard thing is to stay alive and keep knocking out a new three hours every year, gradually degrading the quality of your own obituary.”
Mourinho is not gone yet but so it has proved in the eight seasons since. Even his presence in the Europa League is evidence of that. After league titles in five consecutive jobs, he has not been close in his last three, never further away than right now.
And yet, there are those still drawn to the flame, enough acolytes out there who are willing to make his case for him. The newly formed Europa Conference League win with Roma last season was the club’s first European trophy in 61 years, after all.
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Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher has described Jose Mourinho’s actions after Roma’s Europa League final defeat to Sevilla as unacceptable and was full of praise for Anthony Taylor and fourth official Michael Oliver.
Had Mourinho followed it up against Sevilla, a sixth European trophy would have taken him clear of the rest. Even in these last eight years, his star faded, the list of those with more wins in the period would have been short. In fact, there would have been nobody on it.
It is the sort of sophistry of which the man himself might be proud – Zinedine Zidane would not have been swapping his three Champions League triumphs in a row for two Europa Leagues and a Conference League win. But the persistence, at least, can be admired.
Mourinho endures, raging against the dying of the light in his own inimitable way. The edge is still there, from the digs at Tottenham that show no grudge is small enough to let go, to the ongoing run-ins with referees that appeared to reach a nadir this season when he resorted to wearing a wire.
Seeking out referee Anthony Taylor marks a new low.
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Jose Mourinho says he wants ‘to fight for more’ at Roma amid speculation
When at Real Madrid or Manchester United, the tale was of big clubs being targeted, a system determined to drag them down. Now back in his role as a relative underdog, this shapeshifter has seamlessly pivoted to dark hints of big-club favouritism.
As ever, there will be excuses made by him and for him. It takes the pressure off his players, they say. But if Mourinho is not winning, if he is losing, and without grace, the lessons are less clear. For his peers, for the next generation, he does not cut an aspirational figure.
What are you left with? The spectacle of an angry, beaten manager shouting at a minibus in a car park.
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