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Soccer

'Jose Mourinho was the cool disruptor - now he's a relic'

After Ollie Holt's piece cutting to the core of Jose Mourinho and his current standing, broadcast...



Soccer

'Jose Mourinho was the cool disruptor - now he's a relic'

After Ollie Holt's piece cutting to the core of Jose Mourinho and his current standing, broadcasters George Hamilton and Ruaidhri O'Connor joined us to gauge the Portuguese.

Entitled 'The Special One?', Holt poetically lists the ways in which Mourinho's imperial clothes have steadily fallen away.

Jose Mourinho

O'Connor believes there is no way back for Mourinho, and that clubs are engaged in folly thinking that he will ensure them success.

"He uses the line 'It's not easy being special' six times in the piece - it is almost like a piece of poetry and it kicks off another round of evisceration at every turn.

"I'm struck that if someone is born in 2004, they would be 17 now - how do you explain him to someone who doesn't remember him running down the touchline in 2004?

"He was cool, he was young, he was vibrant - he was like no manager we'd seen. He revolutionised the game. He won the Champions League with Inter Milan, with that team that should never really have won the Champions League; with Porto who should never have won the Champions League.

"He used to be cool; he was a 'disruptor' before that became a fashionable tech term. Now he is just this relic, he is an advertisement for never growing old. He should be forever encapsulated in that 2004-2008 period where he was just untouchable.

"He became so sour at Real Madrid, he never convinced me at United. Now, why would you ever replace Mauricio Pochettino with this man who has clearly been passed by in the game?

"I heard David Meyler say 'look at what he's done in the game' but what he has done in the game is ancient history. It is just so hard to reconcile the image of that man he was in 2004 with where he is now."

George Hamilton

George Hamilton, stalwart of Irish sports broadcasting, gave us the first-hand experience of being around Mourinho's sides in his pomp.

"It's astonishing to think how it has all gone wrong. He was brand new - he was throwing his jacket into the crowd in Gelsenkirchen that night they won the Champions League.

"I remember that I was on the way to a Champions League game at the start of the season that Inter Milan won it. Damien O'Meara was on Morning Ireland and he said to me 'Who's going to win this Champions League?

"I said 'Inter Milan' and the reason was Jose Mourinho. That was a decade ago, and now look at how it has all falling apart."

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