Jose Mourinho must take over the reins of an international team to relive his glory days

For much of the last decade, Jose Mourinho has resembled an aged and worn-out one-man band still living on the old hits. His audience just content tuning into his old hits and ignoring the barely chart-topping new hits. The dated Special One track — so ancient that it predated Youtube — the King of Scorn and Sarcasm numbers, or the Master of Jibe and Takedowns number.

There is nothing new or original, or even relevant. Or to put it is straighter, he is out of tune with the melodies of contemporary club football, his methods decadent. He simply does not excite, or intrigue, or even instigate. A few months away from his 61st birthday, the autumn seems to have set in, his fall from the elites of European football, all too evident.

Not that he would sink into oblivion. The turfs over the sand-dunes of Arabia could intoxicate him; an upper mid-table club in the top five of Europe could be weighing a move.

But it’s doubtful if he could ever scale the peaks he once had. The two Champions League titles, league wins in four different countries, numerous less sparkling trophies, genuine Mou-moments interspersed streaks of Mou-madness, all that seems a thing of the past, and adequate accomplishments to consider him as one of the greatest managers of all time in Europe, one who weighed success in points and medals, one who cared not so much about playing attractive football as about winning football.

He had once summed up his philosophy: “It’s not important how we play. If you have a Ferrari and I have a small car, to beat you in a race I have to break your wheel or put sugar in your tank.”

AS Roma fans with a banner in support of former manager Jose Mourinho inside the stadium before the match (Reuters)

In his peak, he mastered the underdog race — the success of Porto and Inter Milan embodies this trait. But in recent years, he seems to have lost this knack too. Perhaps he had lost it some time ago. The moment he celebrated that steering Manchester United to second place in the 2018-19 season was an achievement of his career, which a younger Mourinho would not have settled for, was a sign of his diminishing aura.

When the club sacked him the next season, he would bitterly say: “I belong to top football, top-level football and that is where I am going to. You speak about [Pep] Guardiola or [Carlo] Ancelotti, the ones where I obviously belong, have a career of victories for a long period.”

But whereas Guardiola continues to define and redefine Manchester City, Ancelotti in constant evolution, Mourinho has descended into what he crudely accused Arsene Wenger of — a specialist in failure.

The Tottenham job was a total disaster, where he was both grumpy and impatient. He found peace and love in Roma, fetched their first trophy of the century, reached the Europa League final too, but the reality was that he won just 49 percent of the games for the historically underachieving club. The axe was waiting to be wielded.

It would be no surprise if he found himself on the saddle of a new club as early as the next game-week. But it would be ideal if he takes over the reins of coaching a country rather than a club.

Over the years, celebrity managers have been averse to taking up assignments with the country. Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger did not; Guardiola and Ancelotti have not. The chasm between the two jobs are so wide that they are now two entirely different job profiles. A group of them, the humble, nondescript proletariat ones deemed fit for the country-task, and a more glamorous bunch, the intelligentsia, turning up for the biggest clubs in the world.

AS Roma fans hold up a picture of former manager Jose Mourinho inside the stadium before the match. (reuters)

At this juncture of his career, national duty seems the perfect stage for Mourinho. Rumours are rife that the Portuguese body is seeking his nod. It would not only be a fresh challenge for him, but also the perfect job for him.

His brand of football suits a national team rather than an elite club. The focus invariably is more on winning than conforming to a certain style, it’s more about winning trophies rather than winning it in style. Barring Spain, no country has devoted themselves to a particular style and still won championships. His pragmatism — the emphasis of function over style — grooves into the model of a national team.

A biggest relief would be that his teams needn’t press or pass as rigorously as a modern club side. Mourinho never embraced the press, even as those around him, and even those older than him, changed. He was never comfortable with the tactic that is as indispensable as the breathing air to mankind in modern football. It’s more dispensable with national teams.

There is also the scope for more individual brilliance. He has always relied on bursts of genius from individuals for success, be it Arjen Robben and Didier Drogba in his first Chelsea stint; or Wesley Sneijder at Inter or Cristiano Ronaldo at Madrid, and Eden Hazard in his second Chelsea stay. He gives talented individuals the full allowance to express themselves.

The World Cups and Euros are a grander stage for individual dazzle and success. The knockout nature of the tournament thrills him too. He is someone who is better at focussing on outcome than process, more suited to sprints rather than marathons.

Not that the job is without pressure. No other job in football gives a manager the chance to bring such unbridled joy to so many people. He has to make do with the available players, he would end up traveling a lot more, the practice sessions would be hastily arranged; he would barely have time to understand the man behind the player. But managing an international team would be his golden chance to reinvent himself, and strum some new and relevant hits.

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