SO, IT APPEARS Jose Mourinho wouldn’t mind managing in Glasgow at some stage of his career.
The self-appointed Special One wasn’t specific about which club he may deem to grace with his presence, but I think we can rule out Queen’s Park.
There may have been a day when such a proposition of a move to these shores for such an illuminating and captivating character would have carried a certain appeal. But that was about two decades ago.
Putting it bluntly, The Special One ain’t so special any more. While he preened himself on the touchline in Istanbul last week, his side, Fenerbahce, were being dismantled by Wee Barry’s Ibrox visitors who deservedly won 3-1 and, as even the Portuguese maverick attested, it could have been worse for his shambolic outfit.
Any team can lose. No side has a God-given right to win games. It’s a quirk of the beautiful game.
SNOOZE AND YOU LOSE…Jose Mourinho feigns sleep after a long-winded question from a Turkish reporter after Fenerbahce’s loss to Barry Ferguson’s side.
Your humble scribe is still a state of bewilderment at Partick Thistle hurtling into a four-goal interval lead in the 1971 League Cup Final over Jock Stein’s Celtic on their way to a 4-1 triumph.
I was at Hampden that afternoon. I was 19 at the time. Time has marched on, but I – and a few thousand others – discovered you can take absolutely nothing for granted in this game after that mystifying escapade in Mount Florida all those years ago.
Managers will get things wrong, they will make decisions that boomerang on their best intentions.
Transfixed, Mourinho, arms at his side and feet apart like an old Wild West gunslinger, hardly blinked as he watched his team toil and stumble their way towards what looks like an inevitable Europa League exit.
He’s back in town again for tomorrow night’s return in Govan and, as usual, he will bring the carnival with him. Jose is a genuine charismatic figure, a colourful personality who demands attention and flourishes as his own best PR man.
Mourinho has never been comfortable with anonymity, he craves the spotlight as much as you and I do oxygen.
His intoxicating charm wooed Fenerbahce’s owners into giving him the job as team boss and allowed him to spend £40million in the summer in a scatter cash recruitment policy that would drive the Parkhead money men to the verge of a collective nervous breakdown.
Look, Mourinho deserves to be offered a platform to deliver his opinions and views. He has earned that right. You cannot take away from him that he guided Porto to their 3-2 UEFA Cup Final extra-time victory over Martin O’Neill’s Celtic team in Seville back in May 2003.
His players’ well-rehearsed time-wasting ‘tactics’ had the Irishman in the opposite dug-out in a fit of near-apoplexy long before the final whistle shrilled in the sunkissed Spanish city.
SORROW IN SEVILLE…Martin O’Neill can’t mask his disappointment after Celtic’s UEFA Cup Final loss to Jose Mourinho’s Porto in May 2003.
He conquered Europe with the Portuguese outfit the following year with a Champions League success, a feat he emulated with Inter Milan six years later.
You can throw in a Europa League with Manchester United in 2017 and even the Europa Conference League with AS Roma three years ago if you wish to swell the already zeppelin-sized ego of The Special One.
But that was then and this is now. Time takes no prisoners in its uninterrupted and ceaseless odyssey.
Jose’s last title win was with Chelsea in 2015. By the looks of things, I wouldn’t be putting the house and the family cat on the possibility of the Super Lig championship being added to his accomplishments with Fenerbahce currently seven points adrift of leaders Galatasaray.
It may also be worth noting Mourinho has been sacked before the end of a season by his last four clubs.
His insistence last week against Rangers to leave one-time prolific striker Edin Dzeko on the pitch for the entire 90 minutes was incomprehensible. The Bosnian is now 38 years old – and he looked every minute of it against the Ibrox side.
If Jose did not see his captain was out on his feet with half an hour still to play, then I suggest a trip to the local Specsavers.
He also kept faith with the plodding Sofyan Amrabat in the middle of the park. The guy had a season at Old Trafford on loan from Fiorentina in 2023/24, brought in by his fellow-Dutchman Erik Ten Hag, and arrived as a puzzle and departed as a mystery.
I have yet to see the value in this player and I doubt if I will be forced to change my mind after exploits in Govan tomorrow night. I can only forecast doom and gloom for the Turks and their seductive gaffer.
Mourinho is now 62 and, as they say in football circles, his future is behind him.
He was outfoxed in Istanbul by a caretaker manager who was at the helm of Kelty Hearts while The Special One had stints at Manchester United, Spurs and Roma.
So, Jose, forgive us, but your offer of one day possibly managing in Glasgow will not spark a phone call from the east end of the city any time soon.
However, at a club across the River Clyde, there is every likelihood of a takeover from a San Francisco-based consortium and the prospective new owners may just fancy a sprinkling of Hollywood-style showbiz to announce their arrival.
As we all know, dear reader, they do enjoy a good circus in that little corner of the universe.
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