Midas Mourinho & the fates evoke memories of 2012 as Chelsea edge into Champions League semi-finals Fortune once again smiled on the Blues in Europe while their manager got his big decisions right and remains the master navigator of this elite competition No sooner had the ball hit the net than Jose Mourinho was off, sprinting down the touchline to meet his delirious players who had piled on top of each other by the corner flag. It was Tuesday April 9, 2014 but at first glance it could so easily have been exactly 10 years and one month earlier; the moment the wider world first had its attention seized by the man who would later call himself the Special One, wheeling away from the visiting dugout at Old Trafford after Costinha’s 90-minute equaliser had broken Manchester United hearts and set his Porto side on the road to Champions League glory, eyes defiant and both fists skyward. Demba Ba’s 87th-minute strike, which shattered Paris Saint-Germain’s resistance and fired the Blues into the Champions League semi-finals on Tuesday night, offered a similar opportunity for catharsis, but Mourinho did not take it. He had no intention of submitting to the emotion of the moment this time. “It was not to celebrate,” he told reporters when it was all over. “It was to tell the players how we have to play the last minutes, because I know that in that moment they want to celebrate, they want to think the game is over.” Unlike Porto at Old Trafford in 2004, Chelsea only led by away goals and still had eight more minutes to negotiate against desperate opponents with no remaining substitutions and all three of their maligned strikers on the pitch. “The way we were playing we couldn’t carry on winning 2-0,” Mourinho admitted. “I had to go there because it was the only chance I had to tell Demba, Fernando [Torres] and [Andre] Schurrle what we have to do in the last minutes. But you could see that I can run!” This was not the Mourinho who sometimes lapses into bravado. It was closer to the Mourinho who can watch one of his players score a goal of the season contender without batting an eyelid, a man able to completely detach himself in order to remain capable of making cold, analytical decisions when time is in short supply. A man made for nights like this one.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 05:47:29 +0000
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