Soccer: Jose Mourinho Quits Chelsea

In a statement released early Thursday morning, Chelsea Football Club confirmed that Jose Mourinho will longer be their coach.

"Chelsea Football Club and Jose Mourinho have agreed to part company today (Thursday) by mutual consent."

This dramatic turn of events and late night drama marks the end of Jose Mourinho's glittering three year spell at Chelsea. His departure comes in the wake of Chelsea's embarrassing draw with minnows FC Rosenborg in the UEFA Champions League.

The Special One

Having led an unfancied Porto side to Champions League glory, Jose Mourinho arrived in London in 2004 to take charge of Chelsea, now under the reign of Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich. Landing at the airport straight in the midst of the circus known as British media, he promptly proclaimed:

"Please don't call me arrogant, but I'm European champion and I think I'm a special one"

Ladies and gentlemen, the ego had landed.

What was to follow was a rollercoaster three years in which he would lead Chelsea to 2 Premier league titles, 2 FA cups, 2 League cup victories, 2 trips to the Champions League semi-finals and an all time home record of 64 unbeaten league games.

2004/2005

His first task on arriving at Stamford Bridge was to lighten Abramovich's wallet. A summer spending spree £70m saw stars like Tiago Mendes, Didier Drogba, Mateja Kezman, Ricardo Carvalho and Paulo Ferreira added to Chelsea's payroll.

That season, the EPL title was wrapped up with minimum fuss. By December 2004, Chelsea were on top of the Premiership table. In February, he won his first trophy for Chelsea – beating Liverpool in extra time for the League Cup – and later in April secured Chelsea's first domestic title in 50 years with an emphatic 2-0 victory at Bolton.

However, the Champions League campaign was marked with controversy. Chelsea lost to eventual winners Liverpool in the semi finals. By now, Jose Mourinho had become a permanent fixture on the sports pages, with his quirky comments, constant complaining and unabashed arrogance.

"We have top players and, sorry if I'm arrogant, we have a top manager."

Jose 'Moaninho' was here to stay

2005/2006

Roman Abramovich had just one demand from Mourinho – To win the Champions League. Before the season began Asier Del Horno, Lassana Diarra, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Michael Essien had bolstered the ranks. In a buying spree exceeding £50m, Abramovich displayed his commitment to spend what it takes to win Europe's highest honor.

After topping the Premier League for most of the 2005-2006 season, Chelsea beat rivals Manchester United 3-0 on April 2006 to win their second consecutive Premiership title and Mourinho's fourth domestic title in a row.

"Everybody wants Chelsea to lose a game. When they do they should declare a public holiday."

But Champions League glory still evaded him. By now cracks began to appear, with critics complaining about Chelsea's dour playing style. Roman Abramovich was clearly unhappy. Domestic glory was not a sufficient reward for his invested millions. He had been seduced to football by watching Manchester United and Real Madrid's exquisite, fluid moves, and Mourinho's defensive style was upsetting him.

The boss was unhappy.

"Pressure? What pressure? Pressure is poor people in the world trying to feed their families. Working from dawn till dust just to feed their young. There is no pressure in football."

2006/2007

Two titles in two seasons suggested that Jose Mourinho was indeed special, but then so was the seemingly endless budget he had to work with. This season was also to be marked with the characteristic Chelsea splurging, a trend that was causing serious inflation in the transfer market. Jose Mourinho bought in Kalou and John Obi Mikel. But more importantly, Abramovich bought in Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko. This move set a downward spiral in the relationship between Mourinho and Abramovich. Mourinho felt his authority at Chelsea was being undermined. He had spent the last two seasons crafting a team based on loyalty and strict discipline, in which he was the focal point of authority. His team may have played boring football, but they delivered the results.

"Look, we're not entertaining? I don't care; we win."

This season would also see the reemergence of Manchester United as a potent threat to Chelsea's dominance. By January, Mourinho was locked in a power struggle with Abramovich aide and sporting director Frank Arnesen. All of a sudden, the wallet slammed shut, prompting the first suggestions that all might not be well in west London.

Chelsea were performing badly, and eventually lost the EPL crown to Manchester United. Boardroom politics and a failure to integrate his squad with Ballack and Shevchenko were fast deteriorating his relationship with the upper management.

Liverpool didn't make things easier, eliminating Chelsea from the semi finals of the Champions League. Jose Mourinho had had three close chances to win the cup, but had failed to deliver the prized trophy. Roman was loosing patience.

2007/2008

This summer was marked by an uncharacteristic lull in the transfer market, with the only notable purchase being that of Flourent Malouda. Chelsea beat Birmingham 3-2 at Stamford Bridge in their opening match of the 2007-08 season and in the process set a new English record for unbeaten league matches at home. Despite this, their start to the season was not as successful as previous seasons. The team lost away at Aston Villa and slipped to 5th place in the table, a hitherto unknown territory. Abramovich walked away in disgust before the match ended.

"I think the owner leaves the stadium when he wants to leave. I went to see England-Germany the other day and I left early because I wanted to beat the traffic."

But things came to a head on Tuesday, where Chelsea could only manage a 1-1 home draw against an unfancied Norweigan team FC Rosenborg in front of an almost half-empty stadium.

Roman Abramovich probably could take no more. In his eyes, Jose Mourinho's term had been a (relative) failure. Twenty four hours later, Chelsea announced that Mourinho and the club had parted ways 'by mutual consent', a euphemism for being sacked.

In a little over three years, Mourinho showed that he could be arrogant, eloquent, infuriating and brilliant. His arrogance was cringeworthy at times and his quotes were every journalist's dream come true. But Mourinho had failed to infuse his team with the same dynamism he displayed in his press conferences and in doing so the Special One's reign has come to an end.

"Omelette, eggs. No eggs, no omelettes. It depends on the quality of the eggs. In the supermarket you have eggs, class one, class two, class three. Some are more expensive than others, and some give you better omelettes. When the class one eggs are in Waitrose and you cannot go there, you have a problem."

(Mourinho about injuries in his Chelsea squad, three days before he parted company with the team, 17 September 2007)