The fleeting nature of sporting success is never more highlighted than in Jose Mourinho’s descent from “The Special One” and “The Happy One” to “The Sacked One”. Chelsea’s supremo went from being the toast of the English Premier League to temporary joblessness in just seven months even as the champion club teeters on the precipice of relegation. Who can the irrepressible manager blame now but his own players since he has been through adversarial situations with the entire gamut of people he believes are his opponents, like referees, opposing team managers and television pundits? Mourinho should, perhaps, blame Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who has been through eight managers in his 13 years as Chelsea owner.
Maybe Abramovich has a shorter fuse than the irascible Mourinho. But then Abramovich had intended to build upon the league success of the previous season in giving the Portuguese a new four-year contract worth about Rs 130 crore per annum plus a big purse to buy all the soccer players he wishes to make the combination plays with which managers stamp their individuality on the game. Given Mourinho ’s history, he should not struggle to adapt the India-born Rudyard Kipling’s ideal equanimity in the poem If — “... If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/ And treat those two impostors just the same...”
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