Jose Mourinho won two consecutive national titles in Portugal. He did the same in England, and then Italy. But he won’t be doing it in Spain — not this season anyway — because of Tito Vilanova’s Barcelona.
Anyone who saw Barcelona give a very good Atletico Madrid a goal start and win 4-1 on Sunday would have encountered the thought that Vilanova might actually have improved on his inheritance from Pep Guardiola. Or even wondered if Vilanova, who was Guardiola’s principal assistant before the Camp Nou idol took a sabbatical, made the crucial contribution to the great team’s methods.
This is the problem clubs face in choosing managers: they look at a man’s record without necessarily knowing what he has done to create it.
Hence Chelsea, who painted by numbers in appointing Mourinho and got it right, did much the same in again raiding Porto for Andre Villas-Boas with different results.
So where is the guarantee that Roman Abramovich, in the unlikely event Guardiola would be tempted back to work by the impatient Russian, would see greatness recreated on SW6’s green and pleasant land?
Perhaps, on this occasion, Abramovich is being saved from his own folly. Perhaps he should switch his aspiration to Vilanova, whose judgment is being vindicated week by week in La Liga — his latest decision was to drop Dani Alves in favour of Adriano, whose magnificent equaliser and general performance overshadowed Lionel Messi at the weekend — and whose side everyone will want to avoid in the Champions League draw.
It would be a first for Abramovich, but one that might appeal to him: he could swap Guardiola for Vilanova, albeit only in his own mind, thus sacking a manager, or at least thinking he has, before appointing him. He wouldn’t even have to pay compensation.
