Besieged Mourinho inspires admiration and anger

European governing body UEFA has effectively labelled the Chelsea manager a liar who created a poisonous atmosphere and he faces heavy punishment in the row over his comments about his Barcelona counterpart Frank Rijkaard and referee Anders Frisk.

It is not the first time Mourinho has clashed with authority since, full of brash confidence, he breezed into English football last June, describing himself as a special manager, and started to dismantle the Arsenal-Manchester United hegemony.

The FA fined him last month for saying United players cheated, he was expelled from the dugout for making provocative gestures at Liverpool fans during Chelsea's League Cup final victory and he and Chelsea have also been charged by the Premier League over an alleged illegal move to poach Arsenal defender Ashley Cole.

UEFA's criticisms are by far the most serious. The strongly worded condemnation of Mourinho, his assistant Steve Clarke and another official in the Barcelona row revealed the depth of the federation's anger, particularly after Frisk quit the sport following the debacle.

Chelsea and their manager, who stand by their story that Frisk and Rijkaard discussed the match in a dressing room at half-time of last month's Champions League first-leg match, are unlikely to get a sympathetic hearing from UEFA's disciplinary commission on Thursday.

The Portuguese manager, so authoritarian in his stewardship of the runaway league leaders, appears to have trouble dealing with officialdom himself.

Brought up under the Portuguese dictatorship, with its secret police, rigid class system and Fado-Fatima-Futebol (folk song-religion-football) tradition to keep the masses quiet, Mourinho would have learnt the meaning of authority.

Mourinho's rules

His coaching staff and players say he knows exactly what he wants from them and gets it. Players' behaviour is conditioned by Mourinho's book of rules, which they have all read and agreed to. He is meticulous and assertive. If a player proved unhappy under his leadership, the player would leave, Mourinho has said.

Such assertiveness may have come naturally to a bright middle-class and probably indulged Portuguese boy, raised in a deeply conservative and patriarchal society, whose father's goalkeeping then coaching career gave the family good standing.

When Jose was 11 Portugal's carnation revolution swept aside 50 years of dictatorship at a stroke. Young people revelled in their new-found freedom to dissent and challenge authority.

The adolescent Mourinho may also have learned a few tricks from the revolutionaries.

At Porto, where he swept all before him, winning domestic honours then the UEFA Cup and Champions League in successive seasons, Mourinho also upset the bosses, receiving a suspension for ripping a shirt in anger during a superliga game.

Portugal, though, with its rather more deferential media, was always going to be more indulgent towards one of its most famous footballing sons.

Mourinho has railed against the British media, saying they do not like him. This is patently untrue.

Newspapers and television were delighted to be presented with an unusually photogenic, demonstrative, articulate and opinionated man in the dull and cliche-ridden footballing world.

That some of his outbursts, attacking referees or individual journalists, might sound petulant and get him into trouble, simply adds spice.

While Chelsea deal with UEFA's charges, Mourinho has stepped out of the limelight, avoiding the press, and his public will miss him.

His highly paid and talent-filled side, on course to break Premier League points and defensive records this season, are still winning despite the furore.

They have proved wrong those detractors who felt Mourinho, even with owner Roman Abramovich's millions behind him, would not survive in the tough English game.

The League Cup is already in the bag and Chelsea's first league title for 50 years beckons.

Siege mentality

Perhaps it was always Mourinho's intention to develop a siege mentality among his squad and draw the spotlight away from his players.

"I think we thrive on togetherness," Chelsea vice-captain Frank Lampard said last week

"We've got the ability and we've got the players but without that spirit I don't think you can win what we want to win.

"It's something the manager has instilled in us and the players have responded to that," the England midfielder added.

Fellow managers also admire him. Manchester United's Alex Ferguson said he showed wit and intelligence, though his former boss at Barcelona and ex-England manager Bobby Robson remarked recently that Mourinho might display a bit more humility.

Ian Dowie, whose Crystal Palace side suffered 4-1 at Chelsea's hands the Saturday before last, commented: "I don't think we should lose sight of what Jose has achieved as a manager. He is a manager who is absolutely serious about his art."