THERE are managers who crave recognition, attention, the spotlight.
And then there is Jose Mourinho.
A man who believes the football world — maybe even the whole globe — revolves around him.
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But if the Portuguese is going to become the first boss to lift the Champions League with three different clubs, it is surely now.
Or, perhaps, continue the journey towards the obscurity which would leave even Mourinho, for all his ego, destitute.
His return to Real Madrid seems to have been scripted as the ultimate redemption story.
The self-styled Special One was hounded out of the Bernabeu 13 years ago, jettisoned as the victim of player power from a dressing room that refused to be told what to do.
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Then this summer, recruited once more by Florentino Perez and hailed as the antidote to fix a different Madrid squad that spent last term bickering with the coaching staff and physically taking actual lumps out of each other on the training ground.
We all know the Mourinho story. A force of nature at Porto, Chelsea and Inter Milan — winning the Champions League with the Portuguese and Italian clubs — conquering unlikely peaks while fighting with every fibre of his body.
Yet equally, the fall-out at Madrid, the return to Chelsea that brought a third Premier League crown but internal war, including a fatal public spat with the team doctor and an ignominious exit.
And the short-lived spells at Manchester United, Tottenham, Roma, Fenerbahce and Benfica, a gradual fading of the light that once burned so bright.
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It means this second Madrid incarnation is make or break. While regaining LaLiga supremacy is important to the club, triumphing in Europe is Mourinho’s driving ambition.
The recent three-part Netflix documentary gives an insight into his soul.
Long-held suspicions that he considers himself the inheritor of the navigators, who discovered uncharted lands for colonisation, were confirmed.
But unlike Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan, Mourinho wanted to dominate old worlds, not conquer new ones. As he admitted: “I wanted to make history — and nothing was going to stop me.”
That has not changed. But neither has time stood still.
Mourinho, 63, is more than two decades older than he was when he ran down the touchline as Porto boss at Old Trafford in 2004, his grey coat flapping.
The chiselled features are no longer quite so sharp, even if the acid tongue remains. But going one beyond the two-club European title feats of old foes Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti, as well as reigning champion Luis Enrique, would cement Mourinho’s status.
In his own words: “Greatness is to be in history.”
Kicking off against former club Inter, in a match which could feature five English players, Mourinho knows all too well the expectations . . . and the opportunity.
While Arsenal have laid down their domestic marker already, the other four Prem clubs are all under new management, while Paris Saint-Germain have two last-gasp draws and a defeat from their opening three Ligue 1 games.
The big question, as ever with Jose, is how he copes when things do not go right.
Mourinh) joined Madrid first time round believing every player was a potential ally but left convinced each of them was the enemy.
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Burning question
The tall poppy theory became a self-fulfilling and damaging prophecy. So far, he has been on his best behaviour.
After the surprise 1-0 defeat at Real Betis on Friday, when a dreadful VAR call meant Kylian Mbappe was denied the chance to rectify his spot-kick miss, Mourinho avoided the blame game.
Yet the suspicion is that, if things go wrong, he will target one of his stars, Mbappe, Vinicius Jr — who will harbour doubts after Mourinho’s defence of Benfica winger Gianluca Prestianni’s abusive comments last term — or Jude Bellingham.
In the documentary, Mourinho insists: “I wanted to be loved.”
He does. But he also loves to be hated. The danger is that he finds it increasingly easier to attract the latter than the former. This feels like the final chapter.
No time to hand in chips
JUST three weekends in and the folly of Premier League chiefs refusing to use the World Cup-style connected ball has been exposed.
Spain’s LaLiga, which also uses a Puma ball, has introduced the chip technology this season but bosses decided it was not necessary here. Cue the furore over Neco Williams’ “handball goal” against Tottenham.
The chip would have helped detect any contact with a “non-goalscoring” part of Williams’ body — his arm — allowing VAR Peter Bankes to make an informed decision, rather than taking a punt.
Bankes probably made the right call to disallow the goal — photo stills seem to show Forest’s Williams accidentally handled.
But under the protocols, it’s hard to figure out how he could see it sufficiently to overturn the on-field decision from the camera angles at his disposal.
Using the latest modern technology — good enough for the second-best domestic league in the world — would have shut down the controversy.
Purrfect for Mikel
MIKEL ARTETA was the cat that got the cream on Sunday night. You couldn’t blame him, either, for his purrs of contentment.
The Basque tactician deployed his lexicon of positive adjectives at his team’s outstanding performance.
Arsenal were “exceptional”, “spectacular” and “beautiful”, Ezri Konsa “phenomenal”, Kai Havertz “amazing”, Martin Odegaard “perfect”.
Arteta had two audiences. The one in the Emirates press conference room was secondary.
After Chelsea’s pretensions were put into context, he wanted his words to reverberate around the Etihad — to get Enzo Maresca and his Manchester City team talking.
What a Fox up
A DECADE ago, Leicester were preparing for their first Champions League campaign as Premier League winners.
And five years later, it was Napoli in the Europa League as FA Cup holders. Today, Foxes fans are licking their wounds following the humiliating 4-0 League One home drubbing by Oxford.
Boss Russell Martin looks like a one-trick pony that hasn’t actually got a trick, with the club’s very future unclear and League Two football next term more than possible. Never forget, nothing in football is permanent.
Hands on
UEFA referees’ boss Roberto Rosetti accepts there have been far too many handball penalties awarded in recent seasons.
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The talk is of alignment across Europe and “clear evidence for interventions, not marginal and microscopic reviews”.
See how long that lasts!