Sulphur in the air as titans go into battle

SUPER CUP FINAL:

For those who prefer their football to come with edge and needle it promises to be unmissable, even if Uefa, in their wisdom, have decreed it be played in Prague at the Eden Arena, which has a capacity of just 21,000.

In the blue corner of Chelsea there is Mourinho, football’s great pragmatist and the man who could start an argument in an empty room, although they are usually reserved for the touchline or the post-match press conference.

In the red corner of Bayern there is Guardiola, the nice man of football, whose intricate passing patterns and vision of the beautiful game won over so many neutrals in his time at Barcelona.

The two were once friends and colleagues when Mourinho was first Bobby Robson’s interpreter and then assistant manager at Barcelona in the 1990s and Guardiola was a defensive midfielder with the Spanish club.

That all changed when the two were thrown into direct rivalry, Guardiola becoming Barcelona boss and Mourinho later arriving at Real Madrid to prod a Spanish bear pit which already arguably constituted the most fractious relationship in football.

Mourinho’s style is confrontational by nature.

He likes to get under the skin of his competitors, seeking any advantage. It worked at Porto, where he won the Champions League, it worked with Chelsea where he delivered back-to-back league titles and at Inter Milan where he won another Champions League trophy.

It did not work quite so well in Spain. At Real Madrid Mourinho met his match on the field where Barcelona were dominant for most of his three-year reign.

In 15 matches in which Mourinho has gone head-to-head with Guardiola the self-proclaimed ‘Special One’ has won just three, drawing five and losing seven.

It could hardly have begun worse for Mourinho in Spain, losing his first Clasico against Barcelona 5-0 in 2010, after which Real Madrid director Florentino Perez described it as the worst game in the history of his club.

Typically, Mourinho preferred to dwell on his Champions League success that year with Inter, saying: “On a scale from zero to 10, I give my year an 11.”

The rows with the Spanish press and his rival coaches gradually increased but the feud with Guardiola really ignited before the 2011 Champions League semi-final when Mourinho accused Guardiola of getting his players to shout and scream to the referee about every decision.

He also claimed Guardiola was in a management group all of his own, one in which referees were criticised for correct decisions.

The usually equable Guardiola was suitably riled, famously filling a press conference with expletives as he said of Mourinho: “He’s the f****** boss, the f****** man.

“Off the pitch, he has won. He has won for the whole year. I’ll give him his own off-the-pitch Champions League title [for that].”

As it was Barcelona won that semi-final against Real and then the final against Manchester United in 2011 and Guardiola had the ultimate say.

So, who is the better manager?

It is a tough one to answer since Mourinho spent hundreds of millions assembling his Real team while Guardiola preferred to develop the impressive Barcelona talent, such as Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi, that he inherited.

In Mourinho’s defence, however, he has sustained his success over 13 years while Guardiola has been in management for just five seasons.

The purists perhaps would side with Guardiola, whose Barcelona team were universally regarded as the best club side to have played the game.

The pragmatists might go for Mourinho, a man who finds a way to win before considering marks for artistic merit.

In truth, the jury is out, which is why this year the Super Cup, so often a meaningless bauble, has taken on much greater significance.

It pitches a Chelsea side with a pleasing balance of experience and creative youth against a vibrant Bayern team looking to solidify their recent dominance.

Mix in the fact that Bayern still feel aggrieved at losing the 2012 Champions League final to Chelsea and the ingredients for a good old-fashioned tear-up are obvious.

Most of all, however, this is between Pep and Jose.

This is personal.