September 19 – Special One Out

On September 18 2007 Chelsea chief executive and Zippy from Rainbow lookalike Peter Kenyon said: “After the first week I didn’t feel Ranieri was up to the job. Having been around a winner like Sir Alex, Ranieri certainly didn’t come into that class, so we embarked on looking for a new manager.

“We came up with Mourinho who was young and different. We’d seen some of the best names but he was hungry and thought differently and I saw he had some of the same qualities as Alex Ferguson.

“He’s a winner and we were lucky enough to get him, and I think we’ve had some success since then.

“There’s loads of speculation that if we don’t win Jose gets fired, but that’s not the way we think.”

Just one day later, Mourinho was gone, having left the club ‘by mutual consent’. Chelsea’s most successful manager ever was out of a job after a little over three years in the job.

His record at Stamford Bridge included two League titles (including Chelsea’s first for half a century), two League Cups and the FA Cup, but crucially, he couldn’t deliver the European Cup which he had won with Porto the season before he arrived in London.

Despite forcing the club to splash out on a bigger trophy cabinet, there were rumblings that all was not well between Jose and club owner Roman Abramovich who was keen to see some champagne football as opposed to Mourinho’s functional fare.

But Jose had his own quibbles with his boss, not least that he kept foisting players on him that he didn’t want, and employing Avram Grant as director of football over Mourinho’s head.

Eventually the irresistible force of Mourinho’s ego met the immovable force of Abramovich’s money head on, and something had to give. After a limp 1-1 draw with Rosenborg in the Champions League in front of a meagre 24,000 crowd at Stamford Bridge, Jose and Roman had words, and it was all over.

A club statement said: “The reason the decision has been taken is that we believed the breakdown [between Mourinho and owner Roman Abramovich] started to impact on the performance of the team.

“Recent results supported this view. We did not want this to continue or affect the club further.”

“Early this morning we announced that Chelsea and Jose Mourinho had agreed to part company by mutual consent.

“The key phrase here is that there was mutual agreement. Jose did not resign and he was not sacked.”

“What is clear, though, is we had all reached a point where the relationship between the club and Jose had broken down. This was despite genuine attempts over several months by all parties to resolve certain differences.”

Mourinho’s parting statement had a touch more warmth in it: “I am very proud of my work in Chelsea Football Club and I think my decision in May 2004 to come to England was an excellent one,” he said.

“It was a beautiful and rich period of my career. I want to thank all Chelsea FC supporters for what I believe is a never-ending love story.

“I wish great success to the club, a club that will be forever connected to me for some historical moments.”

The most charismatic man in English football was gone, and after Chelsea fans, the press were hurting the most as they could no longer count on the Portugeezer for snappy quotes to fill their pages.

Now at Internazionale, Mourinho is already making his presence felt in Italy.

We’ll leave you with some clips of the Special One, but check this out if you want more footy action from this day in history.

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