José Mourinho remembers the match as though it were yesterday when, in fact, it was 16 May 2000 and it is the little details that have stood the test of time. The big ones were that Mourinho, then the Barcelona assistant coach, had been allowed to take the team for the Catalan Cup final against Mataró and that they won 3-0, to give him his first trophy in charge of a major club.
But it is when he goes over the occasion that he recalls how Louis van Gaal, the Barcelona manager and his boss, had stayed silently on the fringes as Mourinho gave the half-time team-talk. This was Van Gaal pushing him to earn his stripes. In the development of the Chelsea manager, it was a significant moment.
“He did with me what I do with my assistants – give them not just responsibility but the tools and support for evolution,” Mourinho said. “Make them ready for a possible next step. I took the team [against Mataró] but he was in the stands. He came down at half-time to listen to my team talk. He didn’t want to interfere, because he probably thought that was right.”
For Mourinho, it was a tonic, a vote of confidence, and confidence was most assuredly the theme of his briefing with the media, as he sent his messages and prepared for the fixture against Van Gaal’s Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday. Mourinho is hardly the shy and retiring type but he is in full peacock mode right now.
“I have only positive news,” he said, before rattling off a few of the reasons. His Chelsea team are clear at the top of the Premier League; they have seven points from nine in the Champions League and the camp, according to Mourinho, is a happy camp, indeed.
The Old Trafford showdown has been billed as the battle of master and pupil, Mourinho having spent three years as Van Gaal’s assistant at Barcelona, but it might also serve as a marker of Chelsea’s progress during Mourinho’s second spell in charge.
When he took the team to United at the beginning of last season, he adopted a cautious strategy, naming a starting XI without a recognised striker and he was pleased with the 0-0 draw. No one is talking in such terms now, least of all Mourinho. “Offer me a point and I don’t take it,” he said.
Mourinho disputes the notion he set up for the draw last season, arguing pragmatism merely took hold as the game unfolded. His present team feel more secure, more commanding and more enterprising. Chelsea are enjoying their football and the combination of results and performances is heady.
“I know fans have tastes and they prefer one style and they don’t like so much another one but it’s difficult to say that Chelsea is not playing good football,” Mourinho said. “And it’s important also for us as a group to have that feeling that we are getting results but, at the same time, we are playing well.”
Mourinho was even emboldened to suggest this team could be better than the one with which he was so successful during his first spell at Stamford Bridge. “I don’t like to compare because it’s not good for a team that [has] won nothing to be compared to a team that won everything,” he said. “But at the same time, I have to be honest and say that this team is showing great quality in its football. If we also manage to win titles, it can be better. Let’s see.”
Van Gaal has said he has no set style, merely an over-arching football philosophy and Mourinho says he is the same. “The top managers, they don’t have a style,” Mourinho said. “The top managers use the players they have in the best possible way.”
For Chelsea, it has meant stability at the back, in the shape of John Terry, Gary Cahill and Branislav Ivanovic, and technique, intelligence and execution in midfield, where Nemanja Matic is forming an instinctive understanding with Cesc Fàbregas.
“Matic and Fàbregas have started together in every Premier League and Champions League game,” Mourinho said. “There are teams and players who don’t do that during the whole season. They understand each other very, very well.
“We are trying to play a football adapted to the qualities of our players. If you have people like Eden [Hazard], Oscar and Fàbregas, you need the ball. You need to control the game by having the ball and using their intelligence and creativity.”
