Euroscene: One morning at the end of February, Newcastle United manager Bobby Robson got a phone call from Portugal, from Porto coach and former Robson "interpreter" at Sporting Lisbon, Jose Mourinho: "Mister, I think we did quite well last night. I think we can win this tie," Mourinho told his former boss.
"Last night", of course, had seen Porto defeat Manchester United 2-1 in the first leg of a Champions League tie that Porto went on to wrap up with a dramatic 1-1 draw at Old Trafford in the second leg. If there was still somebody out there who had failed to understand Mourinho's level of achievement with Porto, surely the message had now got through.
United represented just the latest scalp in an ongoing, triumphal run at Porto that last season saw his side win the UEFA Cup as well as the Portuguese league and cup double. Furthermore, until Gil Vicente sprang a surprise 2-0 win against Porto on Saturday night, the reigning champions had been unbeaten in 27 league games (22 wins, five draws).
The fact that until Saturday night only AC Milan and Real Madrid had beaten Porto this season says much about their quality. Despite Saturday's slip-up, Porto are still four points clear of Sporting Lisbon with six games to play and a game in hand, and they have also already reached the Portuguese Cup final, on May 16th.
Tomorrow night, against French champions Olympique Lyon, Porto could write yet another glorious page in the life and times of Mourinho when they take a 2-0 lead into the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie. At stake is a probable semi-final clash with reigning European champions AC Milan, who take a 4-1 lead into the second leg against Deportivo La Coruna.
In a year when Euro 2004 host country Portugal will be the centre of football attention, Porto and Mourinho could yet give their country the perfect lead into this summer's tournament with a glorious showing in the Champions League. If and when they dispatch Lyon, Porto will not start as no-hopers in a semi-final clash with AC Milan.
Last Saturday night's defeat might have been a rare slip-up but it also suggested minds were concentrated on this week's Champions League clash.
Porto were not the only Champions League quarter-finalists to lose concentration last weekend. AC Milan were held to a 1-1 draw by lowly Modena, Deportivo drew 2-2 with Betis, Monaco drew 3-3 with Ajaccio, Lyon lost 1-2 at home to Olympique Marseilles while Arsenal, of course, were beaten 1-0 by Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-final.
Mourinho's record with Porto, however, suggests he will have his side back at full powers of concentration tomorrow night. An assiduous student of football, Mourinho not only has an extensive video library of opponents, he also has more than 15 years' worth of private notebooks which represent the collected gems of football knowledge, picked up working alongside Robson and later Dutchman Louis Van Gaal.
"Every night, at the end of a day's training, he would go home and write everything down. He was always taking notes," commented Robson recently.
Those "notes" indicate something of the obsessive, single-minded nature of Mourinho. Anyone who saw his wild celebration of Costinha's late qualifying goal against United was left in little doubt about just how much football, and winning at football, matters to him.
Those notes, too, have helped him create a cut-price side that rotates around goalkeeper Victor Baia, Jorge Costa, Nuno Valente and Ricardo Carvilho in defence, Brazilian Deco, Russian Dmitri Alenichev and Costinha in midfield and South African Benni McCarthy and Brazilian Carlos Alberto in attack. In terms of market value, the side are probably worth a tenth of AC Milan or United's playing squad.
In terms of results, they could yet prove themselves as among the best in Europe, starting tomorrow night at Stadio Gerland in Lyon.
