The Special One

It has been a love-hate affair of Chelsea fans with Mourinho ever since he took over Chelsea in 2004. 2004 to 06 was a good time to be a Chelsea fan. You didn’t have to go through the heartbreak of losing. It was a good time to support when all you wanted was emotional highs and skip the lows. And boy, did they win – back to back premiership titles after 1955. It didn’t matter that Mourinho turned Chelsea into a boring, defensive outfit. All was forgiven because he gave us wins.

But even the self-styled 'Special One' knew that this winning streak couldn’t go on forever. "Daddy always brings a trophy", said Jose's son and Jose says, "Daddy can't bring the trophy every year. Daddy got to lose someday". So, he did falter. A red resurgence in 2006/07 meant that Chelsea were second in England and there was that fallout with the Chelsea hierarchy.

Then Mourinho took Inter, an already boring team with quality not quite at the level of a Barca, Chelsea or a Man U. February came and Chelsea fans watched with horror as the man who had led their entry into the big league was taking apart their dreams. With Barcelona, it was vintage Mourinho as Inter suffocated Barcelona with their tight marking and umpteen flow-breaking fouls. The idea was to let them not play. The press conference smugness that Mourinho displays now seemed to be hubris and his tactics against the very idea of football. One anchor has put it this way, "If this world gets ten managers like Mourinho, there would be no spectators. The stadiums would be empty".

The most detestable part of it was that he was leading the second best or maybe the third best team to a trophy they didn’t deserve. Everyone, the neutrals would be happy if it was Messi's Barca who would lift the trophy and Jose Mourinho tried to upset that and therein lies a catch. Like, is it that bad? Leading an underdog, using their strengths whatever they had; as Eto'o accepted, 'We are not as skilled as Barcelona, but we have our strengths [sic]', does the most 'perfect', the highest quality team have to win? Why not the so called second best, those not quite at 'that level' but with their own strengths nonetheless? Why not those who rise to the occasion? It all seemed fair again.

So, what makes the special one, the special one? A glimpse of the answer came after Saturday's final match with a YouTube grab showing Jose getting down from his car and having an emotionally charged exchange with Marco Materazzi. "We did it. We knocked the bastards off". Jose was ours again.

Check out the vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUD4IxLIPuo