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In The Stands’ Rolly Pelovangu continues to ask serious questions about Jose Mourinho by examining his success with FC Porto and what can be learned from them.
Part I of why Jose Mourinho is overrated looked at the self-proclaimed ‘Special One’s’ enormous ego, questioned his tactical and coaching abilities, and exposed his very divisive personality as well as his more sadistic traits.
Of course the views may not be agreed upon by everybody – not least if the Portuguese coach has guided the club you support to some major honours during his spell in charge.
With a cabinet full of shiny silverware it would seem silly to even question Jose’s success, but surprisingly enough, every single one of them can be – beginning with perhaps his greatest ever achievement – winning the UEFA Champions League with FC Porto in 2004.
Jose Mourinho Winning the Champions League With FC Porto
Ask anybody with a scintilla of knowledge about European football just what is Jose Mourinho’s most outstanding accomplishment in the dugout and invariably they will point to his UEFA Champions League success with FC Porto in 2004.
‘The winners are…FC Porto!’ I can still hear the loud croaky announcers voice on the tannoy as Jorge Costa lifted the famous jug-eared trophy at the Veltins Arena in Schalke to confirm the Portuguese champions had become kings of Europe for a second time.
This preceded a narrow 3-2 UEFA Cup final win over Celtic in 2003 (after pathetically diving all over the place let it be noted). Impressed? Hardly. What ought to be taken into consideration was Porto’s route to the final and the shocking decisions which benefitted them along the way.
To be blunt and honest, throughout the entire competition FC Porto only played two good teams – Real Madrid in the group stages and Manchester United in the last 16.
Porto were drawn alongside Madrid in the groups and ironically enough Los Blancos were the only team who beat them on the continent that year – a rousing 3-1 win in Porto with Zinedine Zidane netting a brilliant third.
At the Santiago Bernabeu on Matchday 6 the pair drew 1-1 with both clubs having already navigated their way past a easily manageable group.
Manchester United vs FC Porto Paul Scholes Disallowed Goal
Then came the last 16 tie with Manchester United. Credit is given where it is due and an impressive Porto side beat the then Premier League champions 2-1 at the Estadio Dragao as Roy Keane stupidly got himself sent-off for stamping on Vitor Baia.
Afterwards, Mourinho riled up Sir Alex Ferguson by pointing out that the Red Devils had lost to a team who have “10% of their budget!” Fair enough.
The second leg, with United needing just a simple 1-0 win to advance to the last eight went down in Champions League folklore as Paul Scholes’ WRONGLY disallowed goal kept Porto in the game (they were 1-0 down at the time), before Costinha struck at sudden death. The rest as they say is history.
The linesman who disallowed Scholes’ header was then struck off by UEFA, so, far from Mourinho’s tactical and managerial qualities, it was the men in black who ensured passage his sides’ passage into the last eight.
Then came a distinctly average Olympique Lyonnais side who were beaten 4-2 on agg, which was proceeded by the double-headed bore with Deportivo La Coruna in the semis where once again Mourinho’s Porto were aided by the men in black.
How? Well, Jorge Andrade was sent off in the first-leg for a friendly poke to the back of his best friend Deco meaning Depor lost their best player that season before crumbling to a Derlei penalty at the Estadio Riazor.
By now the rest of the continents giants were bored silly and few cared when Porto trounced a very average Monaco side who lost star player Ludovic Giuly to injury in the first 15 minutes.
What Porto’s Champions League win did more than anything was ‘put Mourinho on the map’. It made his star brighter, his name bigger and his ego doubly-inflated. Prior to that who knew of this man? No way were his side the best team in Europe that season and to suggest so is laughable.
Across the continent nobody cared. 2003/2004 was the year when Arsenal went 38 games unbeaten, AC Milan only lost twice as they blasted their way to the Scudetto, Rafa Benitez’s Valencia side won a La Liga and UEFA Cup double, and Didier Drogba hit 25 goals plus for Marseille.
It was also sadly the year none of the big guns wanted to win the Champions League as one-by-one they threw it away.
United at Old Trafford, Juventus who wilted and died at home to a very average Deportivo La Coruna side, Bayern Munich, whose goalkeeper Oliver Khan gifted Real Madrid a priceless away goal in Munich during their last 16 tie.
And it doesn’t stop there. In the next round Real Madrid committed European Cup suicide as they contrived to throw away a 4-2 first-leg lead and lose 3-1 to Monaco in the principality.
Unbelievably, the same fate would await Claudio Ranieri’s Chelsea after the ‘tinkerman’ stupidly made an array of bizarre substitutions in the first-leg with the scores at 1-1, and an away goal to boot. The Blues went on to lose 3-1 and then blew a 2-0 lead at Stamford Bridge.
The two best teams in Europe that year were the ‘invincible’ Arsenal team and the Shevchenko/Kaka-inspired AC Milan side of Carlo Ancelotti and either of them (including most of the aforementioned teams) would have beaten FC Porto comfortably in the final.
But of course even they both threw it away with Arsenal blowing a 2-1 aggregate lead with 45 minutes of the tie left to play at home to a Chelsea side they had already beaten three times that season. Elsewhere, AC Milan capitulating in La Coruna as they shockingly lost a 4-1 first-leg lead.
The point being made is that as the giant teams around them committed suicide, Jose Mourinho’s Porto side came via the backdoor ‘like a thief in the night’, dodged the hard games and won the cup nobody wanted to win.
Do remember as well that it was the very first season that the second group stage was taken out meaning the competition became much more like a cup tournament – giving outsiders like FC Porto a better chance of winning. No ‘lucky’ team could ever win the competition when the second group stage was there.
Porto Win Champions League? So What? There Have Been Greater Achievements
As we at In The Stands have suggested many times before, football fans have short memories. Yes, Jose Mourinho won Europe’s elite cup competition with FC Porto but to insinuate that no other great manager could have done so as well, nor has completed such a feat either is nonsense.
What about the great Guus Hiddink who won the then European Cup with PSV Eindhoven in 1988 in a harder era? Or, Ottmar Hitzfield who won it with a fabulously assembled Borussia Dortmund side who brilliantly beat then holders Juventus 3-1 in Munich. It is a testament to his success that Dortmund have never been near a final since.
Likewise, Jock Stein’s Celtic players all born within a 30-mile radius became the first British side to win the European Cup during the infamous Annus mirabilis in 1967, and lets not forget Steaua Bucharest overcoming the mighty Barcelona in 1986.
All of these were greater achievements then FC Porto’s merry skip to the final and we have not even mentioned the path United had to take to win the cup in 1999 as they battled against the likes of Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, Brondby and ultimately Bayern Munich.
FC Porto Since Mourinho Left
Since then FC Porto have slipped back into the ‘outsiders’ category although it can be argued that they were always there in the first place even when Mourinho was present.
Nevertheless, a few solid campaigns in Europe of late has proven that other managers can also do what Mourinho did.
Former coach Jesualdo Ferreira led the club to three straight league crowns which included one double, and came within a whisker of the semi-finals in 2009 when his free-flowing side lost 3-2 on aggregate to Manchester United courtesy of Cristiano Ronaldo’s blockbuster effort at the Estadio Dragao in the second-leg.
In addition, Manuel Neuer’s unbelievable heroics saw the Azuis e Brancos eliminated by Schalke in 2008 when the Portuguese champions played the best football I had ever seen them play in their own lair.
And let us never forget that a certain Andres Villas-Boas led the Portuguese giants to a treble last year – albeit a Europa League treble with his side consisting of Hulk, Falcao, Fernando, Silvestre Varela and Guarin playing some fine football in the process.
It definitely was better football than Jose Mourinho ever got Porto playing during his spell in charge.
The way the game has evolved means that clubs like FC Porto always need to sell their top players in order to compete with the elite clubs and with the quality of the beautiful game increasingly exponentially too (as opposed to 2003/2004), it would be most fascinating to see if Jose Mourinho would be able to lead Porto to a Champions League success in this era. Somehow I seriously doubt it.
Part III of why Jose Mourinho is overrated will look at his spell in charge of Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid and more importantly what can be learned from them.
You can catch Part III of the debate by clicking here.
You can read Part I of In The Stands’ 3-part series on Jose Mourinho here.
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