On Sunday night, as Jose Mourinho leaned back in his coach’s chair, legs crossed, and smiling mischievously, his new team Spurs was making its case for a top-four finish.
Jose Mourinho has reinstated himself as a rock star. That, plus the possibility of a top-four finish for Spurs (which was improbable two months ago) has come back to life. On an increasingly frenetic night at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Jose Mourinho’s team pulled out a 2-0 victory over Manchester City.
The match was a symbiosis of the crowd and players feeding off each other’s passion, physicality, and reaching a level typically seen in cup finals. It also played into Mourinho’s hands. He was like a rock singer pumping up the pulsating crowd at a summer festival.
At the end of it all, he sat down and watched the bonfire burn into the night.
Tottenham’s boss is probably the best manager in big one-off match situations. In other words, if I had one match to win for all the trophies in the world, the World Cup, the Champions League, Premier League, every trophy available, I would pick Mourinho to coach my team.