Just Win Baby?

[dwayne110]

Mourinho's qualities as a manager are indisputable, as Greekstein summarised. How anyone can limit his tactical abilities to putting '9 men behind the ball', 'parking the bus' etc is beyond me. For certain games there is a right way to go about getting the result, there's no better manager in the last ten years at managing matches to get a result than Mourinho. I remember United playing Barcelona away in the Semis of 2009 Champions League. We barely came out of our half, stayed behind the ball, ground out a 0-0 then won 1-0 from a Scholes moment of inspiration. Our approach at home after we scored was identical to the away leg and Fergie clearly realised we couldn't just go at them or we'd be carved open.
Pleno summed it up earlier well, beautiful football isn't just about loadsa goals and a gung-ho approach. Outwitting an opponent who have superior players through intelligent tactics should be celebrated.
The Chelsea performance against Liverpool was Mourinho at his best, reducing Liverpool to running out of ideas/feeding Gerrard with 30 yard half chances, while stinging them on the break.

[The Baron]

The posts by people like Baron and Alex on Mourinho really are very stupid though.

He studied and worked his way up from the very bottom. He worked as a PE teacher, youth team coach, interpreter for the late Bobby Robson, scout and assistant manager.

Then he took over a small Portuguese club and took them to their highest ever league finish before winning the league, UEFA cup and champions league with Porto!!

Then he came to Chelsea and we won the league for the first time in 50 years with something like 95 points.

Following that, he took over at Inter Milan and won the League and Italian cup.

Then he won the copa del rey in his first season at Real Madrid and the League in the following year.

Since Chelsea replaced him, we have had 8 managers, including Carlo Ancellotti, Guus Hiddink, Rafa Benitez and Luis Felipe Scolari and not a single one of them did as good a job as Mourinho.

To say he makes the team play boring football is fine but two bitter Liverpool fans insulting the man's talent is just rediculous.

Saying that playing narrow and deep isn't genius is stupid? Oh ofc, by the insight of a Chelsea fan who knows best obv. Give me a break.

Mourinho is obviously very good at his job. I just don't see the good old fashioned (and totally fair enough) smash n grab, as a sign of genius. Anyone who wants to use that game to support their claim of his greatness needs to watch more football.

[The Baron]

Mourinho's qualities as a manager are indisputable, as Greekstein summarised. How anyone can limit his tactical abilities to putting '9 men behind the ball', 'parking the bus' etc is beyond me. For certain games there is a right way to go about getting the result, there's no better manager in the last ten years at managing matches to get a result than Mourinho. I remember United playing Barcelona away in the Semis of 2009 Champions League. We barely came out of our half, stayed behind the ball, ground out a 0-0 then won 1-0 from a Scholes moment of inspiration. Our approach at home after we scored was identical to the away leg and Fergie clearly realised we couldn't just go at them or we'd be carved open.
Pleno summed it up earlier well, beautiful football isn't just about loadsa goals and a gung-ho approach. Outwitting an opponent who have superior players through intelligent tactics should be celebrated.
The Chelsea performance against Liverpool was Mourinho at his best, reducing Liverpool to running out of ideas/feeding Gerrard with 30 yard half chances, while stinging them on the break.

I agree. But setting a side up to not score and stifle the opposition isn't difficult. I do it most Sundays. Scoring is much harder.

The issue is around doing it as your first 8 types of tactic. Let me rephrase, the Chelsea I once saw with Duff, Robben and also a little of Joe Cole played some amazing, amazing football with real tactical genius (see Barca game and some of the subtle changes he made). Chelsea vs Liverpool a few weeks ago, not what I would call genius. Simple as really.

Also, anyone who watched Italian football under Saachi, Capello, Lippi, Ancelotti etc will see that brilliant destructive football has been around (and more effective) way before Mourinho. He's great at it - no doubt. But he's not exactly a pioneer. And it's not even his best weapon. See the list of CL semis where is hasn't worked. What is it 3 goals in the last 7? You see when he faces better sides than Liverpool he's not so genius is he?

Surely a guy with that much at his disposal at the likes of Inter, Real etc could build something similar to Chelsea in 2005? Ruthless and truly brilliant. Or did he just inherit a side with some great players in it that time?

Tough to say. All I know is he'll beat a City side twice next season (even though by CL standards they're pretty bad), probs win the league playing this way and be hailed as the second coming of Christ I'm sure.