In the 1995 Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn-starrer Dead Man Walking, a nun comforts a convicted killer on death row. She empathises with the inmate as the clock ticks, reaches out to offer both temporal and spiritual help.
There was no such help for Jose Mourinho when on Thursday he was cast aside yet again by Chelsea. This was Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich’s 10th sacking in 12 years at the helm. It is easy to blame the Russian for his low patience threshold, yet Mourinho’s sacking this time had an air of inevitability about it.
Unlike in 2007, Mourinho had now apparently lost his dressing room. In the Premier League match that proved to be his last, a humiliating 1-2 defeat against Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester City, there were murmurs that Eden Hazard, the fulcrum of this new Chelsea, feigned an injury and went off.
It is simply unthinkable.
For all of Mourinho’s perceived and actual guilts – and a book could be written about just those – he had always been a players’ manager, having fashioned himself on Alex Ferguson with whom the Portuguese enjoyed a special bond.
Not unlike the legendary Scot, Mourinho would never fail to turn the focus on himself whenever Chelsea suffered a reverse on field. An outrageous comment against rival coaches during a presser or a cynical blaming of the referee (which the erstwhile Manchester United manager specialised at), the Portuguese always ensured that the spotlight is firmly focused on him.
He would take in his stride the blames, the finger-pointings from pundits, fault-finding from critics, the outraged reactions from rival coaches, the jibes from rival fans. The Special One reveled in his role as The Onerous One, shielding his players from the cacophony of unrelenting media circus.
Listen to Frank Lampard on the bond Mourinho develops with players:
“Jose protects his players better than anyone I have ever met,” Lampard, one his trusted generals, said in 2013 when Mourinho returned for a second stint. “He might rub people up the wrong way via it, and I know some people outside the club might have been fed-up with him, but I wasn’t fed up with it all! As a manager, he is brilliant with his team tactically, he is brilliant with individuals, and I think he is brilliant with the press. I know it creates a storm here and there, but he does protect his players.”
Even when he had left behind a club, he never left his relationships behind. As John Terry told Spanish newspaper Marca when Mourinho was at Madrid: “He’s still ‘The Special One’. We send each other text messages and often wish each other good luck. He’s interested in our (Chelsea’s) results and everything that happens at the club. He’s not only in contact with me but also with (Frank) Lampard and other players.”
Or, take the case of Andre Schuerrle, who left Stamford Bridge in January to return to Bundesliga club Germany. The German didn’t think he would get a medal until receiving a text from the Portuguese manager.
“I didn’t know that I’d get a medal when I didn’t play most of the second half of the season,” Schurrle told BBC. Jose Mourinho sent me a text to say that I’d get a medal and he asked me to come to the last game. That was very nice for me.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the brilliant yet mercurial striker who now plays for PSG, spent just one year with Mourinho at Inter Milan but was left hungry for more. Ibra hailed the time he spent under Mourinho as a ‘career highlight’.
“We worked together for one year at Inter. The feeling was great between us and my only regret is that we were together for only one year,” Ibrahimovic was quoted as saying in Daily Mail.
By the time he was sacked though, Mourinho’s world had come crashing down. The man who built his empire based on mutual trust saw the entire legacy go up in smoke as the players stopped believing in him.
Could the Eva Carneiro fracas have triggered off the spectacular unraveling?
It seems the obvious reason, with his wards ultimately losing trust in manager who took issue with a doctor for treating an injured player writhing in pain on the pitch.
Not only did it spark off a heated furor that ended up with the feisty doctor resigning from post and suing the club, for the first time in his sparkling managerial career Mourinho had come off second best from a fracas. He had always taken on the authority and won, but here his aura seemed a little diminished, his ‘moral right to rant’ seemed to have gone.
And that was just the beginning.
Was he shortchanged this season by the club hierarchy who failed to rope in any of his transfer targets? Instead of Paul Pogba, John Stones or Raphael Varane, Mourinho got Baba Rahman, Papy Djilobodji, Michael Hector, Kennedy and Radamel Falcao.
If British tabloids are to be believed, Pep Guardiola, who was the first to get a call from Abramovich after Mourinho was sacked, apparently feels Chelsea need 10 new players.
As loss after loss piled on and reports of a loss of faith crept up between Chelsea talisman John Terry and the manager, key players started showing an inexplicable lack of form. Eden Hazard was a pale shadow of last year, Cesc Fabregas ghosted around, unfit Diego Costa was more interested in searching for fights than goals.
Mourinho reacted in the only way he knows. His rants became shriller, took on newer subjects; he chopped and changed the squad, benched Terry and then reinstated him, threatened to field his second-string side and yet never acted on his threat. The accusations grew but it was clear that he had lost control over both his players and emotions.
The method seemed to have deserted him, leaving only madness in its wake.
In his search for answers, Mourinho, who would rather die than admit he’s wrong, did the inevitable. He turned against his players. He accused them of betrayal and worse, claimed there was a mole in the side.
After the defeat against Leciester City last Monday, a journalist with The Sun, who covered the match had this to day: “There is no doubt that the interview post-match on Monday was inflammatory at best. I don’t know how he could have got on the bus back after that, the atmosphere would have been poisonous. Some of the things he has said have been foolish beyond belief.”
Bye, bye Mourinho. This had to happen.