adminLONDON. — Jose Mourinho is perhaps the only manager who can complete a season at Chelsea without a trophy and not face any calls for his sacking or a fans’ revolt. What a difference to the way Rafa Benitez was treated — and the many managers before him. The Spaniard led Chelsea to the Europa League title last year — a competition sneered at in England but still a leading honour — and yet jeering supporters were still counting down the days until Mourinho would return to replace him.
Yet it is Benitez, not his nemesis, ending this campaign with a trophy, having won the Italian Cup at Napoli.
It seems that little, though, can diminish Chelsea’s infatuation with Mourinho, however dull the football has been at times this season, however antagonistic he has been toward referees, however much he has scolded his players in public.
Mourinho knows he can get away with it, for now, without facing backlash from owner Roman Abramovich and the fans who spent so long calling for the return of the self-styled “Special One,” who won all three domestic trophies at least once during his 2004-07 reign.
Despite an acrimonious exit from Real Madrid after finishing last season without silverware, Mourinho points out how he rebuffed other employment opportunities to rekindle the Chelsea love affair.
“I had lots of chances to have easy fairy-tales, I decided not to have it,” Mourinho said after Chelsea’s realistic hopes of winning the English Premier League ended on Sunday.
“If I want to win leagues easily, I would choose another league.
“I would choose another club with another moment that in this moment Chelsea does not have . . . I chose with my heart every aspect the club I want, the club I love, a competition I like very much to play, a city where I like very much to live.”
Having exhausted so much energy during Mourinho’s absence pleading “We want our Chelsea back,” the fans can hardly complain that there will be no parade down King’s Road this year. — AFP.
Online Reporter