Jose Mourinho is currently on the 11th stop of his managerial career and with just one trophy win in the past eight years, it is perhaps easy to forget that used to be a time when his achievements far outstripped the headlines that he continues to make.
The Portuguese burst onto the collective consciousness of most football fans when he led Porto to the 2004 Champions League, and then hit the mainstream at Chelsea, where he dubbed himself ‘The Special One’ before winning the club’s first title for 50 years.
After getting the better of Roman Abramovich’s itchy trigger finger, he went to Italy to replace Roberto Mancini, and would go on to orchestrate perhaps his greatest single season in management.
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Zanetti on Mourinho’s instant impact
After winning the Serie A title in his first year in Italy, Mourinho – who ranked at no.12 in FourFourTwo’s list of the best managers ever – led Inter to a historic treble, with Nerazzurri legend Javier Zanetti opening up to FourFourTwo on the impact that the boss had.
“In 2008, Jose Mourinho took charge,” he recalls. “In the dressing room, we knew a qualified, highly-prepared manager with a lot of personality and experience was joining. Immediately, he made us believe that this team was capable of making history in Europe. The next two years witnessed enormous growth, thanks to him.
“Mourinho convinced us with actions, not words. Everything he told us was reflected in training and then in games. He was a constructive manager, always delivering a positive, direct message to the players. As a team, we already had a history, but he brought us even closer together and in the end that cohesion helped us to overcome any adversity we encountered.
“After that first season with Mourinho, in which we won a fourth successive Serie A title, Zlatan Ibrahimovic went to Barcelona and Samuel Eto’o came to Inter in exchange. Samuel’s arrival was significant because he’d just won the Champions League and provided the experience and competitive leadership we needed.
“Zlatan was a physically dominant player with great technical ability and a very strong personality, but Eto’o came with the winning mentality to make us even better.
“The second campaign with Mourinho was perfect. By May 2010, we were in a position to win everything. In just three weeks, we could either celebrate the Treble or end up with nothing. Every match felt like a final.”
Inter’s day of reckoning came in May 2010, when a Diego Milito brace sealed a 2-0 win over Bayern Munich in the Champions League final, with Zanetti – who ranked at no.96 in FourFourTwo’s list of the greatest players of all time – hailing the work Mourinho did as the season climax.
“Mourinho knew the pressures we were under, and prepared us for that month in the best possible way,” the Argentine adds. “In every press conference, he was convinced we were going to win everything. The crazy thing is, he said that three months before the campaign ended, not three weeks. His confidence gave us wings.”
