The merry go round of managers does include Jose Mourinho in heavy scale as the Portuguise football enigma takes a new turn in his life in management of the major clubs in the game.
The now 58 years of age has a grand collection of medals and trophies starting the run with FC Porto and their very surprising victory in the Champions League in 2004, and prior to that been the domestic champion in 2002 and 2003. After his great years with the Portuguese top club he entered the league of giants in management and took over at Chelsea.
Since his first years at Chelsea he has collected most of the trophies available, and surprisingly guided Inter to a Champions League victory as well in 2010, coming after two years of winning Serie A. He never won that CL trophy while at Chelsea, Real Madrid, Man Utd or Tottenham and now with Roma he looks at a possible chance to yet again be part of such an event.
Embed from Getty ImagesBefore taking over at Roma he had guided Tottenham to a 6th place in Premier League, had taken them to the final of the EFL Cup, but never got the chance to lead Spurs in the final v. Man City being sacked in April after seventeen months in charge. Looking at this period in the mirror as well as his days at Man Utd, goals for Jose are often set to another standard then for those coming in and taking over having another set of rules to play from.
A number of eyebrows were lifted when he shortly after was appointed manager of Roma and again would be given a chance to guide a club out of wilderness. Roma were last seen champions of Serie A as far back as 2001, and it’s been a relatively grim period after that looking at the clubs potential.
Fabio Cappello was in charge when the Serie A trophy last found it’s way to the Roma cabinet. Capello was in charge until 2004. Since his departure of Capello you have seen Luciano Spalletti and Claudio Ranieri being in charge in two periods. You have also had Zdenek Zeman back and getting a short return and his second run in charge as well.
We all know the demands of Jose Mourinho and how he manage to bring teams forward, but also during those spells getting a lot of attention for different topics of many kinds and often when results are not to his liking he tells most people about it, and he also goes often out in open air about players and can find it difficult for others to cope with his style.
So what can we expect from Roma this season, finishing 7th last term and qualified for the Europa Conference tournament meeting either Norwegian club Molde or Trabzonspor from Turkey. A hurdle most would see possible for Roma to pass and also again setting Jose Mourinho on a path towards a trophy he probably would like to get his hands on.
Embed from Getty ImagesSerie A is back again on the 22nd of August with Roma starting at home v. Fiorentina. A grand opener with two classical teams and on the other bench Vincenzo Italiano also newly appointed coming in from Spezia.
Jose Mourinho has been seen in the heat allready and the game v. Real Betis did see him getting the red and his team finishing with only eight players and losing the friendly 5-2. Results in pre-season should not be judged as team selections on both sides can be random and not all having the best team available, but it’s been a bit of everything with eight games played so far against different oppositions.
Three players from Roma was in the Italian squad winning the Euro’s, Cristante, Spinazzola and Florenzi. They are all quality players and with the captain Pellegrini ruled out with an injury and also part of the Italian national team set up we all know that Jose Mourinho will be looking at possible trophies to win next season.
The addition of highly experienced goalkeeper Rui Patricio from Wolves is of course a major boost and his level of performance has been of a high standard in Premier Leauge moving in from Sporting Lisbon in 2018. Another exciting key to Jose Mourinho’s appointment at Roma is his new relationship with the US owner of Roma and club president Dan Friedkin. Exciting to see how this model of football business will exhale and certainly interesting to view the reasons behind appointing Jose Mourinho, as everyone knows what this man can bring to the table.
Leave a Reply