LONDON — It’s the 60th minute of a match that is far from won. Play has been stopped before Benfica’s Dodi Lukebakio can deliver a free kick from what looks to be a dangerous spot in the left channel. There is a tenuous 1-0 lead to worry about but there is only one thing Stamford Bridge wants to do. Not for the first nor last time tonight, Jose Mourinho’s name is chanted to the rafters.
He obliges his adoring public with a wave. And another. And another. At four, a simple acknowledgment will no longer do, at least for the most rabid admirers of Chelsea’s former manager. Top-knotted and summer scarves, a fan by the away dugout pleads for Mourinho to turn around and afford him the finest of selfies.
So much for the football, the real star of the show is the man prowling far beyond the confines of his technical area. When red and blue shirts vie for possession, Mourinho stands barely half a foot away. He stands imperial. All this is his, the house that Jose built.
Chelsea fans have spent the last four years pining for teams as gloriously arrogant and remorselessly competitive as a Special One’s. Before Clearlake, the identity of this club was no less defined Roman Abramovich and his billions than by the atmosphere Jose Mourinho imbued from day one. Every game mattered. Chelsea players would fight with opponents, their officials, their employers. Rules might have been bent — the Football Association certainly seems to think so — because winning mattered above all else.
And that was the rather dispiriting side to Mourinho’s return. All the histrionics, the toying with the crowd, the yellow card at the death: they should be in pursuit of something. What has made Mourinho one of the game’s great characters is how his qualities translate themselves onto the field. Even when his teams cost hundreds of millions to assemble, they play with the spirit of underdogs. They snap and snarl, imbuing the contest with a sense of jeopardy.
Not this time. Perhaps that is just a function of this being match two of the eight game league phase. The tame denouement of a dreary game indicated as much. Richard Rios’ first half own goal won’t decide whether Benfica reach the knockout stages with a top 24 finish. It might not be the decisive game in Chelsea winning a bye to the last 16.
Still the mere presence of a Mourinho at the peak of his powers would have raised the stakes significantly whatever the occasion. He will always be adored in this part of London but he should be feared too. Enzo Maresca rolling out what looked like it would pass for last season’s Conference League attack might have gone punished but a heavily rotated Chelsea side were still far ahead of Benfica in talent terms. When Mourinho rocked up with Inter, Manchester United or Tottenham, he was afforded the same adulation he got tonight. That came with a caveat, mind. Hostilities would soon commence and Mourinho’s players would offer Chelsea no quarter.
If it had been anything like that tonight, this could have gone badly wrong for Maresca, who really did not need an illustrious predecessor returning at a time while his team was faltering. The performances befitting their titles were not coming before tonight and they did not come tonight either. The world champions were not very good. They didn’t need to be. Their visitors worked hard and flashed danger down the flanks, particularly through Lukebakio, yet only seemed to really threaten Robert Sanchez’s goal when Frederik Aursnes was in an offside position. There was no bus parking from Benfica but this team lacked the verve and motor to really test Maresca’s. When Mourinho did spot the sort of opening that he would have pounced on in his prime, it was shut down in a flash.
“I tried to change the left winger because I saw Malo Gusto was in trouble,” he said. “Maresca has Malo Gusto in difficulty. Maresca put on a better player than Malo Gusto [Reece James]. This is the challenge of facing Chelsea.”
Ultimately, if the second half felt like it was building towards anything, it was the Mourinho post-match press conference, which, box office though he may be, was this subdued homecoming writ large. As he had Monday, Mourinho embraced old friends and indulged in his more reflective side. That almost seemed to be the point, cameras pointed at his conversations and pile of biscuits, the matter of what happened on the pitch rather parked to the side.
When he spoke in English, he had a legacy: that familiar reminder of his sacking before he could bring a trophy to Spurs, that insistence that he is more motivated than ever to win silverware, a reaffirming of his standing at Chelsea.
“I thank them,” he said to those who had so welcomed him back home. “I didn’t on the pitch, I was focused on the game but you have the sound. When I’m in London, I meet them every day. I know there is going to be relation forever.
“Hopefully I come here with my grandkids in 20 years. They belong to my history. I belong to their history.”
That is it though, isn’t it? It’s all history now. Mourinho might say, “I don’t feed myself with memories, I feed myself with victories and results,” but he has long since lost the teeth and claws to take down the biggest prey.
The days when he was one of the big beasts ended when he left Tottenham, if not before. But in drifting first to Italy, then Turkey and now back to where it all began, the decline could go unconfronted. Not tonight. This was a night to celebrate what he once was. What he might yet be scarcely feels relevant on Champions League nights.
