MAURIZIO: JOSE IS SPECIAL ONE AND I’M THE LUCKY ONE
MAURIZIO SARRI insists Jose Mourinho will always be the ‘Special One’ and that the Manchester United boss deserves more respect for his glittering past. As for his own journey to Stamford Bridge from humble beginnings, Sarri puts it down to a mix of luck and determination and refuses to accept he is among the world’s best coaches until he has won a major trophy. ‘The results speak for him,’ said Sarri as he prepared to lock horns with Mourinho for the first time. ‘I hope to improve myself in the future but at the moment I have to say he is better than me. He has won everything, everywhere. I think he will be able to win also in the future. ‘I have to respect him. You all have to respect him. I’m not sure at the moment he gets the respect he deserves. I need to win if I want to compare myself to him. He is one of the best coaches in the world. Maybe the best. The results are the best. The Special One is Mourinho. ‘I am not at the moment one of the best. I need to win. I have won in Serie B and Serie C and Serie D but now I need to win at this level.’ When Mourinho arrived at Stamford Bridge as a European champion in 2004, Sarri was in his first job as a professional coach, earning £26,000 a year at Sangiovannese. As Mourinho led Inter Milan to the Treble in 2009-10, Sarri was picking up the pieces of his career at Grosseto after being sacked by Perugia and believes he must be the ‘Lucky One’ to climb from amateur football to the top of the Premier League. ‘You need to be lucky,’ said Sarri. ‘It is difficult to start with a non-professional team and finish in one of the most important clubs in the world. Whether you are good or not you need to be in the right place at the right time. ‘I was lucky at Empoli to find very good young players. We won Serie B with Rugani and Hysaj who were 19, Saponara, 20, and Tonelli, 21. Nobody knew them but they were good and I was lucky. And I think my determination is the top level.’ As Chelsea manager, he remains unbeaten in competitive games, with his team producing a fast, attacking brand of football in contrast to Mourinho’s often-criticised style. ‘The problem is not the way of football, and if I like it or not,’ said Sarri. ‘The focus is his ability to win. He has won everything everywhere, so probably that means he is right.’
EVEN now, it winds me up. You’d have thought something that happened in March 2007 would have been long forgotten but, really, frustration of that kind never goes away.
I’m thinking specifically of a game between Liverpool and Manchester United. We had battered them for most of the 90 minutes and should have been out of sight but, with the last kick of the game, John O’Shea scored in front of the Kop. It was the ultimate kick in the stomach.
Watching him run off celebrating was a nightmare. Why did they always do this? In my first season as a Liverpool player, Rio Ferdinand had done something similar at Old Trafford causing Gary Neville to break the landspeed record so he could celebrate in front of our fans. God, it was awful.
My mum’s side of the family are all Manchester City fans. My Dad took me to Chelsea when I was younger. I had watched United plenty of times when I was a kid and looked on with envy as they won everything. They kept on winning when I became a player and, really, it did my head in.
Why were they the only club who never had to experience disappointment or frustration somewhere? Why did it always seem that everything ran smoothly for them but not everyone else? The day when O’Shea scored, I wanted them to fall off a cliff and experience the turmoil everyone else felt.
You will probably expect me to say, then, that I’m delighted to see the way things have gone for United over the last few months. Well, actually, you would be wrong. Now the chaos has hit Old Trafford, I’ll be honest — I don’t like what I am seeing.
Every week it seems someone is popping up with something that didn’t need saying. It feels like a game of ‘ he said, she said’ and they are in the news for all the wrong reasons. This, remember, is Manchester United, the club that really should be feared all over the world.
I don’t want to pin the blame on people or make scapegoats for the erratic results they have experienced since the start of the season. I’ve heard many people put forward the reason that Jose Mourinho (below) has ‘lost the dressing room’, but I wouldn’t know if that is the case.
There have been times when I’ve been in dressing rooms when big characters have turned against a manager and the followers in the squad follow. It’s a horrible situation, but I don’t accept for a minute that any player ever goes out with the intention of losing to put pressure on a manager.
When you cross that white line, professional pride is the first thing that kicks in. I don’t know anyone who could sit at home on Saturday night and feel OK about not putting it all in to get the right result. You don’t play for one of the Premier League’s top clubs if you accept second best. The desire to put things right was certainly evident in United’s last game against Newcastle, when they managed to turn a 0- 2 deficit into a 3-2 win. It was dramatic and provided a reminder of how things used to be, but it will take a lot to convince me that was a turning point.
Look at the next six fixtures and you will see what I mean.
It’s Chelsea today, two dates with Juventus in the Champions League, Everton at home, Bournemouth — who are flying — away and then the Manchester derby.
That is as a difficult as can be right now and explains why things have not settled down after the win over Newcastle.
There were more negative headlines during the international break and Mourinho, ahead of his