Ever since football was invented by Andy Gray and Richard Keys in 1992, the sport has been full of ‘misremembered’ facts and quotes.
Chief among these is Jose Mourinho supposedly referring to himself as ‘the Special One’ upon taking over at Chelsea in 2004.
He called himself ‘a‘ special one. Don’t believe us? Here you go.
That hasn’t stopped the nickname from following the Portuguese around throughout his career, while it has also come into play in other managers’ first interviews.
Jose is The Special One, in the same way as Hamlet said “I knew him well” and Dirty Harry asked “do you feel lucky, punk?” – if enough people repeat it, they will it into being.
It’s stuck with Mourinho at Manchester United, so when Juan Mata scored the club’s first Premier League goal of the new era there was an obvious joke to be made.
The Special Juan. #MUFC
— John Brewin (@JohnBrewin_) August 14, 2016
So obvious, in fact, that plenty of people got there at more or less the same time.
https://twitter.com/Priya8Ramesh/status/764812749796892672
HT – The Special Juan bails out the Special One #MUFC pic.twitter.com/5WNaYvYQic
— Football FanCast (@FootballFanCast) August 14, 2016
Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium holds just under 12,000 people, and coincidentally that’s close to the number who tweeted ‘The Special Juan’ when the Cherries went behind to Mata’s goal.
https://twitter.com/mufc_loren/status/764811800873492480
https://twitter.com/TJaffery110/status/764811572170649600
Special Juan!
— Uncle Fafi (@Tanganyikan) August 14, 2016
https://twitter.com/1Obefiend/status/764811454478360576
There was something endearing about it – dare we say something special?
