It must be, I just love it how people assume that he spent a fortune at Porto. All of those players were nobodies before they joined Porto and he made them European champs. What a manager.
Easily. I think we need to thank humanbeing for bring ing the topic up so we could see just what a genius Jose was winning the CL with a nett of 500K. I wonder if he'll have the balls to admit it.
The Inter and Porto teams that he won the CL with were, individually, inferior to their competitors and by a long stretch.
Billionaires don't reconcile their differences with people very easily,money takes precedent over sentiment. I'm predicting one argument and adios Jose. Jose v AVB will be interesting and I'm willing to bet that AVB lasts longer than Jose.
Whilst I wouldn't argue that Mourinho has a very good managerial record, Porto hardly qualify as a "village team" they have won the Portugese title 25 times, the cup 17 times & actually were European Cup winners in 1987. Hardly the performance of a village team.
Craig Burley did the exact same thing with Ipswich, yet I don't hear him being lauded. I covered this already - Porto avoided all the tricky draws throughout the entire competition, the only one they faced being Real Madrid who took four points off them in the group stages, and a Manchester United team who were having their worst-ever Premier League season. Monaco had the impressive run to the final, knocking out Real Madrid and Chelsea - and is Deschamps lauded for it? More than anyone else in the Portuguese league could afford. Porto had several seasons of Champions League cash in the bank, which gave them the means and the funds to cherry pick players from the rest of the Portuguese top flight. Do you honestly think the rest of the Portuguese top flight could casually snap up 2/3 of a playing squad from their domestic rivals? As I said, way back when, he had the biggest cheque book available to anyone in the Portuguese league, and he opened it regularly. Excelling in pointing out that Mourinho's reputation involves a lot of smoke and a hell of a lot of mirrors. You're just refusing to listen.
Ipswich spent a shed loads of money whilst Chelsea and the other teams around them had next to none to spend. Sporting Lisbon had as much financial muscle as Porto when he was there, and as I said previously Porto's squad cost peanuts in comparison to United and Real Madrid's squad as well as others across Europe.
The other big clubs in Portugal can and do exactly that. Benfica and Sporting regularly buy players from domestic rivals. Porto are a brilliantly run club, one of the best around. They buy low sell high. For example when Mourinho was there they sold Jorge Andrade to Deportivo for good money which funded a lot of their buys. Look at their transfer history, most seasons they make a positive return on transfers. Look at the players Mourinho bought, they were bought for very little and sold on for a huge profit. To say that he bought that league could not be more wrong.
Wonder how many Glory Hunters Chelsea will have now that Jose has returned, and if you do win the League next year will you still be calling it a "Piss Poor League"
Mourinho buying the majority of the Porto's squad means you can't say he bought the league? Nurse! He's out of bed again!
Probably a fair few. Don't remember calling it a "piss poor league", just massively overrated. Don't think the strength of the league will change much over the course of the year, but if anything, it will get weaker. Does the same also apply to Bill Nicholson whose squad cost double more than anyone else in the league at the time? Buying players is all part and parcel of football. It's proven that during spells at Inter, Porto and even Leiria that he had inferior resources compared to his direct competitiors. In fact, you could argue he underachieved at Chelsea (huge resources) and overachieved at Porto/Inter (limited resources).
I haven't suggested Mourinho is a bad manager; I've questioned whether he can conquer the PL when everything isn't in his favour and he can't outspend his nearest rivals. It's a fair point. SAF faced this challenge with either Chelsea, City or Real Madrid able to buy up his main transfer targets. He won 5 of the last 7 PL titles with comparatively frugal spending. Can Mourinho?
Inter don't have limited resources - you don't pick up Eto'o, Milito and Sneijder in the same transfer window, as Mourinho did, if you have limited resources. You do that because your club has the means and the funds to do so. Inter have always been ready to splash the cash, right back to the late 90s where they were trying to buy titles from Milan and Juventus. The problem they had then was Milan and Juve weren't implicated in the Calciopoli scandal to get them out of the way (even though Inter were also involved but escaped detection, and were also involved in some pretty dodgy tax schemes at the time Mourinho took over - and, no, I did not just say Mourinho was involved in that, just in case someone takes umbrage) As for the Bill Nick comments, that's a lie - Baker, Henry, Blanchflower, Norman, Cliff Jones, Smith and Dyson were all at the club before Bill Nick was manager (most of them several years before) and made up the spine of the first team for the 1960-1 season.
What cash? There's been no money in Serie A for over half a decade. Sneijder cost peanuts as Perez wanted him out which was known to all and sundry. Eto'o was included in the huge Ibrahimovic deal and Milito was part of a player exchange. The squad was culled dramatically and Inter let go of their top earners like Figo, Crespo and players of that ilk. Wages > Transfer Fees
