On the day before the Champions League final, the main story on Uefa’s website featured Jose Mourinho.
Last week, it was hard to believe a football match could take place, that anything could take place, without Jose Mourinho’s imprint.
His image and his name itself had become part of the negotiations during the long week when we waited for the breaking news that he was Manchester United’s new manager.
Sky Sports News carried interviews with men who had got Mourinho’s autograph, something which may yet be disputed intellectual property.
It is unclear what will happen with Ryan Giggs, who has the chance of a new role, but if he leaves, Mourinho is reportedly ready to offer the position to another former United player, possibly Rio Ferdinand.
Ferdinand would be one option, but there is another. Disappointingly, Roy Keane described Mourinho as “irritating” on Saturday night, placing an obstacle in the way of what would surely be the dream ticket.
If Keane became part of Mourinho’s team, then the anxious talk about the dismantling of the Manchester United way would end. Suddenly, the Class of ’92 would be neutralised, while Alex Ferguson would be able to concentrate on his ambassadorial role with the club.
Of course, Keane and Mourinho have a bit of history which was extended on Saturday evening, Keane described Mourinho’s attempt to shake his hand when he sat on the Villa bench at the beginning of last season as “disgraceful” and said he was lucky not to have been knocked out.
But if we know anything about Keane, it is his willingness to move on and find common ground for the greater good.
Many would welcome this development, except maybe the players for whom scenes like those witnessed inside the Manchester United bus as it came under attack at Upton Park would become commonplace.
Mourinho and Jorge Mendes have now established a base in Manchester, but Mendes has another empire to cultivate too. Today he can be at peace as his two most important clients have what they want.
Cristiano Ronaldo explained that he knew he would score the winning goal in Milan on Saturday night. When Portugal lost on penalties to Spain at Euro 2012, Ronaldo didn’t take a penalty because the shoot-out was over before it got to him. He was waiting then to take the final kick.
Like an actor who demands most of the close-ups but knows what to do with them, Ronaldo was prepared to bet on himself again. This was the risk attached when he became the last penalty taker, but it was as risk worth taking as Ronaldo became the man who won the European Cup for Madrid.
They have now won the competition three times in seasons when they dismissed their manager.
If Rafa Benitez had still been coach last night, his game management might have been very different from Zinedine Zidane’s – who took off Toni Kroos and left Ronaldo on when he was clearly not fit – but that may explain why Benitez wasn’t coach last night.
Real Madrid may feel this weekend that everything is going to plan. They let Carlo Ancelotti go last summer, and dismissed Benitez subsequently when it turned out that the reasons they had hired him didn’t apply any more.
Benitez was hired to be Benitez, but Florentino Perez felt there was room for negotiation on that.
Perez has clear instructions for his coaches, instructions which were revealed by Jonathan Northcroft in the Sunday Times after Benitez had left the club.
“The stars should play every week,” Perez told his coach, “and they hate being substituted. And they must be fit at the end of the season, because last year we ran out of gas.”
Ronaldo and Gareth Bale stayed on last night, even if it their fitness could have been questioned.
For much of extra-time, it looked like Perez’s orders could undo Madrid in the final – that is if Zidane is receiving them too.
“He can get you, me and the chief executive sacked,” Perez is said to have warned Benitez of Ronaldo, but there was no danger of Zidane – who understands the galactico philosophy from the inside – doing anything to upset Ronaldo.
If Madrid had lost, many would have questioned Zidane who had used three substitutes after 77 minutes, something which might have been dangerous against a more energetic Atletico.
Mourinho will have noted what happened to Atletico last night when they were forced to have the ball after Madrid’s early goal, and looked lost with it for much of the first half.
In the games against Barcelona and Bayern on the way to the final, Atletico hovered around thirty per cent possession. On Saturday night, it was 54 per cent as they chased the game and Madrid tried to get all their men who were fit enough to retreat behind the ball.
If Madrid were trying to manage this while incorporating their star system, Atletico also look encumbered.
Fernando Torres has been transformed in recent months. When he returned to Atletico, Simeone said that all Torres needed was a hug. Torres had certainly appeared to have become morose on the field, even if a physical decline might have been the cause of it.
At Chelsea, he was said to have irritated his team-mates by talking about how wonderful things were at Liverpool. “The only person who can change is you,” Torres said at one point during those lost years which sounded as if he had been taking consolation from other people’s Facebook updates.
This year it has looked as if the hugs do work. Torres zipped around in the earlier rounds, getting himself sent off at the Camp Nou as he embraced Simeone’s way.
On Saturday, it was the old Torres. When Atletico counter-attacked in the second half, Torres would appear late into the picture, running across the line like a middle-aged pitch invader trying to make it to the far touchline before being smothered by stewards.
On Saturday, he looked like a concession to a star system Simeone doesn’t believe in. Madrid believe in nothing else and with another European Cup, they can claim it all makes sense. As he prepares for his new role, Mourinho will reject the star system too, which is easy when you know that you’re the star.
