Deadly double act show they mean business

WHEN the champagne and lager stops flowing down the Kings Road, when the tears are wiped away, and heads have cleared in about four weeks’ time, there will be opportunity to reflect on the double act which has dominated the European football scene this season.

No, not Lampard and Terry, the admirable English spine upon which Chelsea's success on the field has been founded, but the unlikely conjunction of a Russian oil and gas magnate, and a Portuguese teacher. Both unfeasibly young men, both apparently from culturally different backgrounds.

One a brooding, emotional, motormouth; the other a man from the shadows who has amassed, in a little over a decade, one of the greatest personal fortunes in history. One a Latin with the smouldering looks of a sawn-off George Clooney and a taste for fine clothes. The other a dress-down Jewish orphan and former Red Army artilleryman.

But students of the Chelsea "project" would be better advised to first ponder the similarities between Roman Abramovich and his charismatic coach, and then concern themselves with their intentions for the world's number one sport. Because they are significant and, in keeping with their temperaments, not yet fully revealed.

Both José Mourinho and Abramovich are religious, one a Catholic, one a Jew. Both are self-made, both are opportunists, and both are outsiders. One comes from the Tundra, 1,000 miles north of Moscow, the other from Setubal, third city in Portugal behind Lisbon and Porto.

Abramovich's first venture into capitalism, in the badlands of Russia in the late 1980s, was the manufacture of plastic toys. Within five years he was cashier to the Yeltsin family and known inside the Kremlin as "the wallet"

Mourinho comes from a middle-class background. His father was a successful footballer but young José never made the grade and is fond of recounting how his father's coaching career ended on Christmas Day. Mourinho's burning desire to succeed is said to be fuelled by two motivations proving to his mother that he can make a career from football, and wiping out the memory of his time at Barcelona where he feels he was patronised under the regimes of Bobby Robson and Louis Van Gaal because of his lack of a football "pedigree".

Even more important than religion is the fact that both Abramovich and Mourinho are passionate family men. Abramovich's relocation to England was driven not least by his admiration for the upper echelons of the English education system. His sons, Arkady and Ilya, are down for Eton. Arkady is a promising footballer and has already trained at Chelsea.

Mourinho, who has a young son and daughter, places his family above everything.

The phone call he was seen making from the bench while his players cavorted on the pitch at the Reebok Stadium on Saturday evening was telling. It was to his father. Portuguese speakers can tell you what he said: "Chelsea CAMPEAO. CAMP E AO" We are the champions".

Apart from family and religious fervour, there are important operational similarities between Abramovich and the manager known affectionately in west London as the "Portu-geezer". Both are task-orientated and results-focused. Both are analytical and forward-thinking. Abramovich's foresight put him in a position to exploit the financial opportunity of the fall of communism. If he were a Westerner he would be seen as a hero of capitalism. Mourinho is using modern technology and business techniques allied to psychology to change the mould of English football.

It was not surprising to learn that Mourinho's management team studied, in depth, every game Steven Gerrard played in the past three years before concluding that, while their admiration for Gerrard remains undimmed, they would give priority to signing the 21-year-old Argentinian prodigy Javier Mascherano after the 2006 World Cup.

Mourinho has also disproved the old adage that only teams who play 4-4-2 (his least favoured system) can win the Premiership.

Mourinho's preferred set-up is 4-3-3 but throughout the season he has proved astonishingly flexible, no more so than in the Carling Cup Final, when struggling against Liverpool, he rang the changes from 4-4-2, to 3-5-2, to 4-2-4 to 4-5-1 to 4-3-3 in the space of 40 minutes.

Another characteristic links Abramovich and Mourinho, and it cannot be underestimated. Both men are ruthless. Abramovich did not blink twice at sacking the popular Claudio Ranieri because he detected that the affable Italian lacked the killer instinct. Mourinho immediately issued players with a set of rules which set out his expectations of them.

Hernan Crespo, talented but feckless was exiled immediately, a public dressing-down by Mourinho reverberating in his ears. He was followed by Veron and the skilful, but hapless, Adrian Mutu.

Both men surround themselves with a small cadre of advisors in whom they place total trust. For Abramovich these are his fellow businessmen and lawyers.

For Mourinho, it is his Portuguese training staff, shrewdly expanded with the addition of Chelsea die-hard Steve Clarke. Key among Mourinho's team are Andre Villas Boas, Mourinho's head of opponent research; Rui Faria, the woolly-hatted fitness coach (winding up UEFA a speciality) and Baltimar Brito, the rugged assistant.

Abramovich and Mourinho share a common objective to reorganise football in their own image, in business terms and on the field of play.

The Russian and the man from Setubal sense that the old order is changing. Chelsea have ever-stronger links with a host of clubs worldwide PSV, CSKA, Corinthians in South America, Porto and Benfica. These, by and large, are also outsiders. The project is only beginning. The establishment has good reason to beware.