"I am José Mourinho and I don't change. I arrive with all my qualities and my defects ".
At the very moment in which the tweet on the official account of AS Roma was released, Giallorossi fans exploded: "wait, is it true?", "did they hack your account?", a lot of calls from son to parents, between relatives, friends, colleagues "Roma announced Mourinho!".
A real bolt from the blue: no one could imagine anything, most of the sports journalists, from Rome and beyond, almost assumed the arrival of Maurizio Sarri as Paulo Fonseca's successor. From one Portuguese to another, from Fonseca to Mourinho, all through Tiago Pinto, former sporting director of Benfica, another Portuguese.
The Roma revolution has begun, led by Dan and Ryan Friedkin, the new owners of Roma. James Pallotta had never gone so far, never dared so much with the coaches. The former president, in fact, over the years has hired a very young Luis Enrique (left all alone during a rebuilding season), Zeman, Rudi Garcia, Spalletti, Di Francesco, Ranieri and Fonseca. There was an attempt for Conte, led by Francesco Totti, but the former Juventus player preferred Inter (for money and plans).
José Mourinho, new AS Roma coach: how does it sound? It sounds like a dream, a dream for Roma fans, who haven't lived days like these since Fabio Capello's time. "If Mourinho said yes to the Friedkins, obviously there is a great project", that's what everyone thought from the first moment. Everyone. From the supporter of Testaccio (a Roman neighborhood renowned as the most Romanist) to the top journalist of Sky Sports. Nobody can even imagine that a coach like Mourinho would accept to get involved without having received important assurances about the potential of the project. He is someone who would never put at stake his reputation, his name and his career, for a project in which he does not believe.
Mourinho returns to Italy
He is 58 years old, he has won everything and he has won everywhere, if he has chosen Friedkin's Roma, we all think, he did it for a very specific reason, which is to bring Roma back to glory. The plan of the new owners of the club is to bring titles in three years, exactly the duration of the contract of the Special One.
Over the years, tactically speaking, he has gone from 4-3-1-2 to 4-2-3-1, his favourite scheme at the moment, also passing through 4-3-3. We do not yet know which module he will want to work with in Rome, where he will be able to work with shining young talents (already leaders of the Giallorossi team) such as captain Lorenzo Pellegrini, Nicolò Zaniolo and Gianluca Mancini, all of them (plus Veretout, Spinazzola, Karsdorp, Ibañez and so on) probably can't wait to be coached by the Special One.
The first rumours speak of 4-2-3-1, but it is still early. What all Roma players expect, however, is that the Portuguese coach will be able to transmit to Roma mentality, character, charisma, personality, grit, hunger for victories, all fundamental ingredients to achieve victory (in any competition) and that often Roma lacked, due to lack of coaches (Pallotta in the last years, as we said, has never raised the bar from that point of view) or due to team deficiencies.
This is exactly what is expected of Mourinho: to change Roma, to revolutionise the environment (often considered "a problem" by some local journalists and fans) and the team. When the Friedkins bought Roma, Ryan (the president's son) said: "We think Roma as a sleeping giant". Well, who better than Mourinho to wake up the giant and make Roma a bigger, finally winning team? It will not be easy, of course, it will not be possible as if by magic to buy Haaland or Neymar, but the 360° Mourinho's coaching can accelerate the growth process of the Giallorossi club.
Roma captain Pellegrini against Man Utd
"I think I am a special one", "Fear is not a word in my football dictionary", "God must really think I'm a great guy", "I hate to speak about individuals. Players don't win trophies, teams win trophies, squads win trophies ","Io non sono pirla", and all the mental games with the opponents and that unique way of using the media to his advantage to prepare the most delicate challenges. Who hires José Mourinho not only hires one of the best coaches in the world, but also an intelligent man, pragmatic, brilliant, sharp man, a man capable of handling the communication of a club alone, capable of centralising all criticisms on himself, a man capable of unifying the locker room and making the fans identify with in his person and teams.
Mourinho is much more than a coach and signing him is a declaration of intent, a precise declaration of intent: that of Roma is an actual revolution. A wedding that the more you look at it, the more you think about it, the more it makes sense.
The Porto he built, focusing on homegrown guys who felt a strong identity with the team, in order to make Porto fans proud and in order to make them feel represented, shows his way of working. In the documentary "Playbook, a coach's rules for life" there is an episode dedicated to Mourinho, in which he speaks about the construction of that team.
That kind of sensitivity to the reality in which he works, that kind of mentality fits perfectly with "Romanism": Roma, historically speaking, is not a winning club. It is a team that has come close to many titles, but which has not won much. The Roma fans totally identify with the team and the phrase that better than any other explains the relationship between Roma fans and Roma, is that of Agostino Di Bartolomei, historic captain of the team: "There are football fans and then there are Roma fans". Always behind the team, always, even when the team was losing 7-1 in Manchester and the choirs of the fans in the stands covered the voices of the commentators, supporters proud of having had Roman and Romanist captains, who wore only one shirt during their careers, rejecting rich and important proposals from bigger teams.
Roma fans are special and have a special relationship with the team they love, they would never leave it alone (in 1964, when the club was going through an economic crisis, they also made a whip-round - later refused - to pay for an away match to the team), they are always protecting their one true love. What better coach than Mourinho to make such fans proud? What better coach than Mourinho can transfer that kind of feeling, character, mentality from the environment to the team?
Roma fans farewell their players before the Man Utd semi-final
The approach of Mourinho's teams is a system based on a low block defense, with the team gathered in a few metres of the field, aggressive, ready to counterattack and to take advantage of the wings.
He uses a line of four men, relying on the full-backs to provide width (one pushes, the other one stays behind while attacking) and the double pivot. Mourinho's teams usually turtle up and that's why they are hard to beat. Chelsea in the 2004/2005 season only conceded 15 goals, an absurdly low number, a record that can hardly ever be beaten, but above all managed to bring Chelsea back to victory in the Premier League after 50 years, a crazy feat, on the the basis of which began a completely different story for the Blues.
Roma have not won the championship since 2001 and the certainty of winning the Scudetto could not be given by any coach, but hiring Mourinho is certainly an excellent first step towards the return to victory. Guarantee of success, investments, competitiveness. No one can say if Mourinho and Roma will win together, surely Roma fans have begun to dream a second after the official announcement and sportsmen from all over the world are anxiously waiting to see a marriage that was unexpected but that seems so natural.
Mou's first message to the Giallorossi fans ended with a "daje Roma", "daje" is Romanesque and means "come on" (sorry, there is no chance to translate it perfectly) and we are sure that Roma fans can't wait to fill the stadium and sing for the Special One. In that documentary Mourinho said: "When you are not the best team, when you don't have the best players, your best strategy can be the ambition to win." And appointing him as a coach, Dan Friedkin showed all of his ambition.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mourinho is the new coach of AS Roma and the Roma revolution has just begun.