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Regular-article-logo Sunday, 06 July 2025

Mourinho invited trouble

Free-Kick

PK Banerjee Published 23.12.15, 12:00 AM

Jose Mourinho has been sensationally sacked as the Chelsea manager immediately after the defeat against Leicester. It has not come as a surprise to me despite the fact the Portuguese coach guided his side to the English Premier League title in May. Sacking coaches at the drop of a hat is nothing new in professional football. Mourinho, despite his enviable track record, was no exception.

Mourinho, I feel, is lucky to some extent since he will be paid £250,000 per week up to a maximum of £10million till he gets a new job. During my long coaching career, I have seen worse things - coaches dumped without being offered any compensation by ruthless team managements in the middle of the season.

In football, coaches have a thankless job. I agree they hog the limelight when the team is on a roll. At the same time, his head would be the first to roll when the team's performance graph is on the downhill. He will soon find himself a lonely man, who has been promptly deserted by officials, players and even the fans.

Having worked as a professional coach for more than 30 years, my sympathy is naturally with Mourinho. I consider him one of the finest club coaches in recent times - in just 12 years as a manager, he has won an astonishing 21 trophies. After doing wonders at FC Porto, he won five trophies in three years, including two EPL titles at Chelsea. What more could Roman Abramovich ask for?

At the same time, I have a feeling Mourinho almost asked for trouble - he forgot the golden rule that a coach has to maintain the crucial balance to keep everyone along with him happy, including officials, players and fans.

The Portuguese coach's biggest problem was that he lost support within the Chelsea hierarchy on the very opening day of the season after his tiff with the club doctor. As if it was not enough, the stars of last season's campaign including Eden Hazard, Nemanja Matic and Cesar Azpilicueta had all come in for fierce criticism from their manager in front of their peers, leading to a split in the camp.

Mourinho claimed after the latest defeat - to league leaders Leicester City - that he felt "betrayed" by his players, and that he was a victim of his own success last season. It definitely was not the best way to manage a star-studded team.

I am sure all these things combined together before Abramovich decided that the latest defeat was a step too far, with Chelsea just a point above the relegation zone after 16 matches. After all, football managers, who don't win enough games over a long period of time, deserve the sack.

But then, I didn't like the way Abramovich met players and reportedly moved to allay any fears they may have harboured following's Mourinho's exit. The club owner even addressed the footballers during the training session. It was a show of typical owner's mentality, who always want to portray himself above the technical people.

The Mourinho episode is nothing new - we have seen many top coaches depart like that. Remember how Real Madrid sacked Vicente de Bosque a day after he won the La Liga title. Or for that matter how Udo Lattek was thrown out after a successful stint with Bayern Munich in the mid-Seventies. Chelsea have a history of treating their managers in the wrong manner, their sacking of Carlo Ancelotti is still fresh in our memory.

Sadly, coaches all over the world are treated in a similar fashion. In India, we have several instances how top coaches have been humiliated. A few years back, Syed Nayeemuddin, a Dronacharya awardee, was sacked in a moving car by the general secretary of a top Calcutta club. Not a single footballer or a fellow coach came out in his support.

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