It is nine years since we first met Jose Mourinho. Cocksure, full of bluster and with a team to match. Almost a decade on from that first visit to Old Trafford, as coach of European upstarts Porto, much has changed but, in other ways, little has changed.
Back in the same room where he first called it on with Sir Alex Ferguson before dumping his team out of the Champions League in 2004, Mourinho looked ahead to tonight’s meeting with Manchester United with a nod towards one of the most enduring images of his time at the top of the European game.
‘To win or lose a big match is still the same as nine years ago,’ said Mourinho. ‘But now I live the situation with a different approach, different emotions. That match was my first season playing Champions League.
‘Now I have more than 100 matches and I can control my emotions a different way.
‘If I lose, I don’t cry and if I win I don’t run 100 metres down the touchline, that’s for sure.’
Often lost amid all that is said and written about Mourinho and Sir Alex Ferguson is the fact that their friendship started with a row. The United manager refused to shake his young opponent’s hand after feeling his Porto players fell over too easily in winning 2-1 in the last-16 first-leg game that first threw the men together.
All that has passed between them in the years that have followed, however, serves only to intensify the sense of anticipation ahead of tonight’s reunion in Manchester.
Despite the relatively early stage of the competition, United against Real Madrid does — as Mourinho said last night — feel a little like a final. The world will indeed be watching and there is no shortage of sub-plots.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s return will occupy the attention of cameramen and the Stretford End at kick-off.
If Ferguson doesn’t find a way of stopping him then the form player of European football may be occupying conversations at the end of the night too.
This is also a test of United’s credentials and an insight into how good the current Barclays Premier League really is.
Mourinho, lest we forget, has it in his power tonight not only to end United’s interest in the Champions League but also — to all intents and purposes — England’s as well.
Defeat for Mourinho would be pretty catastrophic too, though.
The memory of back-to-back victories against Barcelona, and the gleaming football that has accompanied it, would soon disappear if Mourinho returns to Spain with dreams of a 10th European Cup left in the dust and only a Spanish Cup still to play for this season.
Mourinho said: ‘Everybody knows in this moment that Spanish football is dominating in terms of national teams and clubs. But all the Spanish teams in the Champions League are struggling.
‘So if the four Spanish teams next week are out of the Champions League, it doesn’t mean that Spanish football is collapsing.
‘It is football, it can happen. English football will always be English football.’
Mourinho was trying to be complimentary. His suggestion, however, that Real are ‘behind’ in the tie after a 1-1 draw in the first leg at home was rather mischievous.
Anyone who has seen his team play in recent weeks will know the threat Spain’s champions will carry tonight.
Ferguson was in the Nou Camp to watch them dismantle Barcelona on the counter- attack a week ago and he was not joking when he professed to being a little shocked.
To progress tonight, United are likely to need one of the great European performances. Despite their progress to the 2009 final, we have not really seen one since they beat Barcelona here in the semi-final a year earlier.
In terms of inspiration, Ferguson suggested yesterday there would be no Churchillian speeches tonight.
‘The important thing for these players to know is that they have my trust,’ the United manager said.
Nevertheless, the appearance of Sir Bobby Charlton alongside Ferguson (left) at United’s 10am training session yesterday will not have been a coincidence.
Apart from Ferguson himself, nobody at Old Trafford carries an aura like him and the sight of Sir Bobby wrapped up in a Barbour coat in the late winter mist yesterday morning will have been enough to remind United’s players just what this great competition means.
The Champions League runs through the soul of United, as it does Real. Both of these clubs would sacrifice domestic success for another opportunity to win European silver. Both managers would do likewise.
In terms of teams and tactics, Ferguson perhaps has a little more to ponder than Mourinho. Real will field the same team from the first leg with perhaps the only question mark over the selection of Gonzalo Higuain or Karim Benzema in attack.
As for United, Phil Jones’s recovery from an ankle injury is a little more advanced than Ferguson let on when declaring him categorically unfit yesterday, while the Scot may yet spring a surprise by leaving Wayne Rooney on the bench at the start. That, however, would represent a seismic gamble.
‘We may have to score twice to get through,’ said Ferguson.
For the hope of the spectacle, we hope he is right. – Daily Mail