Slaven Bilic thought it was a prank. His phone buzzed the day after he became West Ham United’s manager and there was a text from an unknown number. The sender called himself José Mourinho. “I was back home in Split in Croatia,” Bilic said. “I thought that someone is winding me up, of course.”
Then came a call from Demba Ba, who played for Bilic at Besiktas and for Mourinho at Chelsea. “He said the boss asked him for my number,” Bilic said. “I was pleased and since then we are exchanging texts. I like him a lot. I really like him.”
Mourinho has been short of friends lately but Bilic spoke glowingly about him before their first competitive meeting, praising the Chelsea manager’s leadership qualities and charisma, arguing that even people who hate him cannot ignore him. “He is not boring,” Bilic said. “He is everything but boring. For the media as well, he is like a magnet. He is a top, top man.”
Bilic has managed against Mourinho only once, in a friendly tournament in Istanbul last year, and he is expecting a special game when West Ham host Chelsea on Saturday. West Ham are fourth and have already beaten Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City, all away from Upton Park. Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini have been outstanding and Bilic’s side have scored 20 goals in their first nine matches. Only City have scored more.
Yet Bilic is wary of Chelsea, even though the champions are languishing in 12th place after a sticky start to the season. Chelsea got back on track with a 2-0 victory over Aston Villa last Saturday and after watching them draw 0-0 against Dynamo Kyiv on Tuesday night, Bilic fears that Mourinho’s sleeping giants are beginning to stir. He spotted signs of the old Chelsea in Kiev.
“I watched that game and wasn’t happy afterwards because they looked really good,” Bilic said. “Some of the players who didn’t play that well recently were really good. They are Chelsea.”
Saturday’s match will be a contest between two passionate and charismatic managers, both of whom have an electric presence on the touchline. “It’s one of the most important things as a manager,” Bilic said. “As a leader, it is the same to be the manager of a bank. You have to have a charisma, because you are the leader, people are expecting you to be different. An editor-in-chief in your business, it’s the same. In the paper there’s one guy who is the leader, therefore he has to have something that the other guys don’t have. For that, charisma is very important.”
Bilic has studied leaders. “It is very interesting and it is a good way to improve yourself,” he said. “I have said many times that I like to read those type of books. I don’t like the books about how, with no disrespect to them, to become a leader. Step one is keep your guard up or breathe deeply. Step one, step two. No, they are OK, but you go through them, and I read a lot of them, and you go ‘yeah, but I am doing all this’.
“On the other hand I like those biographies, good biographies from the people you know about. That is the best for me. Let’s say by Alex Ferguson, Van Gaal’s book, or for me books from the States about some big guys from NFL or basketball, like Phil Jackson’s. They are unbelievable books. From those books, either you learn new things or you prove to yourself that you are doing good, because that guy has done that.”
Mourinho is the ultimate leader, in Bilic’s opinion. “The most successful people, the most charismatic people, the No1s, they are always polarising people,” he said. “You love them or hate them. I am not trying to campaign to become a president or prime minister of England. I am not talking about why the people love him or hate him. But there’s no chance that you don’t respect him and all that he has done. His CV is unbelievable.”
Bilic disagreed when it was put to him that Mourinho’s aura, that intimidating sense of invincibility, has faded. “You can’t lose charisma, especially not him,” he said. “You are writing about him every day and you are asking me questions about him. We played Man City before and we played Arsenal before that, we played Palace a week ago and nobody asked me so many questions about Wenger or all those things. But you are asking me about Mourinho.”
He turned to West Ham’s press officer. “I’ll have to put training in the afternoon now,” he said. By the way Bilic made it sound, West Ham have a lot to work on between now and Saturday afternoon.
