Why Jose Mourinho was the difference between Inter Milan and Chelsea

By Mirror Football Blog

Published 23:03 16/03/10

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And so the ghost still haunts Chelsea, still wakes them from their slumbers, cold and clammy.

Oh, they have tried to banish The Special One many times with many different new managers but none of it has worked.

Jose Mourinho will not go away. He refuses to. He has always been the cussed type and he will not leave them in peace.

After the triumph for Inter that Mourinho masterminded last night, the shadow he casts over Stamford Bridge has grown even longer.

“Maybe I am no longer so special for the Chelsea supporters,” Mourinho said. “Maybe they will never forgive me for this.” It is likely the opposite is true. This result has burnished Mourinho’s legend on the King’s Road.

This 1-0 victory was as clear a vindication of Mourinho’s managerial talents as there is possible to be. His influence was the crucial difference between the sides.

It was as if his old favourites, players like Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard, had secretly feared all along that they could not beat Mourinho. Mourinho did nothing to dispel that notion.

“Today they were frustrated immediately because they understood that Inter were the better team,” Mourinho said after the match. “They will always be my people. But today I was the enemy and the enemy won.

“I am very happy because we won and we were the best team. Sometimes you win because you are the best team from the first minute to the last minute and that team was my team tonight.

“I am very happy because I won, not because they lost. I am not happy because my ex-players lost or because Roman lost.”

How hard it must have been for Roman Abramovich to stomach this. How hard it must have been to see this upstart of a man that he thought he had flicked aside return cloaked in glory.

There is something about the man and his presence. Mourinho has a cruel knack of making other managers look mundane. Intentionally or not, he humiliates them.

Last night, the night when Chelsea were supposed finally to break free from the Mourinho era, turned into something altogether more worrying for Carlo Ancelotti’s side.

It was as if there were two Mourinho sides out there on the pitch. One had not moved on since he left London three years ago. The other was Inter, relentless, vibrant and aggressively intimidating.

As Chelsea capitulated, it was hard to shake the thought that they were staring at an Inter side that was the image of what they might have become had Mourinho stayed.

Inter were superb last night. They rode their luck a little, surviving two strong Chelsea claims for a penalty. But they were indisputably the better side.

Like the Chelsea sides of the past, Inter were an extension of Mourinho’s personality and in Esteban Cambiasso, Lucio and Wesley Sneijder, they had the game’s three outstanding players.

They were strong in the tackle. They gave no quarter when they did not have the ball. But when they did get it, they moved it artfully and fast. The technique of Sneijder, in particular, was a joy to watch.

It was their intensity that was most striking, though. The intensity that Mourinho brings to his teams. They never, ever let up. Never stopped harassing and pressing. Never stopped snapping at Chelsea’s heels.

And Chelsea couldn’t cope. They looked unnerved by this manic, driven beast that came at them from every angle. They looked intimidated. They looked like a bully being bullied.

Mourinho drove them on. The longer the game went on, the more he danced and jerked and gesticulated on the touchline, urging his side on, transmitting his manic energy to them.

When Samuel Eto’o scored the winning goal 12 minutes from the end, The Special One did his best to keep his promise and not celebrate in front of Chelsea’s fans.

But he could not help himself. As Eto’o’s shot hurtled past Ross Turnbull, squeezed inside the post and hit the back of the net, Mourinho leapt out of his seat.

He ran to the sideline, clenching his fist and thought about running down the touchline like he did at Old Trafford when he was Porto manager in 2004.

But he thought better of that. He saw a Chelsea fan hurl a programme at Sneijder as the Dutchman celebrated and he walked over to retrieve it and lay it back down on the touchline. That was his celebration.

His first return to the ground where he became an icon was not met with the same open displays of affection that accompanied David Beckham’s homecoming at Old Trafford last week.

But then Mourinho’s homecoming at Stamford Bridge was always going to be too dangerous to celebrate.

When Beckham went back to Manchester United last week, it was as part of an AC Milan side that was already beaten.

Last night was very different to that. Last night, it was obvious from the first leg in the San Siro that Inter would be a real threat to Chelsea’s hopes of progressing in the Champions League.

And last night, it was obvious that Chelsea and their fans still aren’t over Jose. Not really. Never have been.

The stadium announcer got it right with his song selection before the start. It was a track by Rainbow.

“Since you’ve been gone,” they sang, “since you’ve been gone, out of my head, can’t take it.”

Mourinho got up from his seat a couple of minutes before the end and disappeared down the tunnel before the final whistle.

Gone but not forgotten. Never forgotten.

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