Chelsea decide on new coach, will he be the Special One?

Andre Villas-Boas, who has been dubbed ‘the new Mourinho’, has quit Porto and is set to follow in his mentor Jose’s footsteps and take over as manager at Chelsea, where he’ll be judged by one just thing – winning trophies. At 33, Villas-Boas is the same age Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard and has only two years experience as a full-time manager. But Chelsea boss Roman Abramovich is said to have been enchanted by the Portuguese. And often, as it has been proved in the past, that’s all that matters. Villas-Boas has worked for Chelsea as an assistant to Jose Mourinho during 2004-2007 before following the Special One to Inter. So he will have some idea of what’s expected of him and how to deal with the big stars at the club. That will help. But the success that he had with Porto in his first season in charge will give him the confidence to dictate terms. [caption id=“attachment_29124” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“FC Porto’s coach Andre Villas-Boas celebrates with teammates their victory at the end of the UEFA Europa League final football match FC Porto vs SC Braga on May 18, 2011 at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. FC Porto won 1-0. AFP”]  [/caption] The Mourinho disciple won everything in his first season as a first-team coach: Portuguese league, Portuguese Cup, Portuguese SuperCup and Europa League. And all of that was on a tight budget; he didn’t have the liberty to splurge on the best players money can buy. At Chelsea, he will have that. Villas-Boas’ approach to coaching is similar to Mourinho. He is just as meticulous and well organised and tends to form close bonds with his players. But unlike his mentor, who often prefers the defensive approach, he gives them more freedom to attack. However, he is in no hurry to best the man who taught him a lot. “I’m no rival to someone who will be the best manager of all time,” he once told the Daily Telegraph. “I have to distance myself, because I believe I have my own personality and the way I work is completely different, but people associate me with one of the best managers in the world so I just have to live with that. “People think I am the next one but I am not the next one. I am a normal coach who benefits from having top players and one day I will not benefit from having this type of talent. I am not the Special One. Maybe, then, I will be The S**t One.” He is unlikely to run into a situation at Stamford Bridge where he won’t have any top players at his disposal but he will have to contend with a quality of opponents (Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham) that is a far cry from what he came up against in the Portuguese league. A fairytale that refuses to end The manner in which Villas-Boas’ got his break in football is a fairytale, capable of giving hope to the thousands of supporters playacting as football managers all over the world. He wrote to Sir Bobby Robson, then manager of Porto, musing that he wasn’t getting as much out of striker Domingos Paciencia as he could. Rather than ignoring a letter from a know-all fan, Robson replied asking Villas-Boas to explain exactly why, and was surprised by the detailed analysis that he received. That prompted Robson to help the youngster get started, sending him to Lilleshall for his coaching badges and arranging for him to spend some time with his former employers Ipswich. He was then given a break by Mourinho and he has gone from strength to strength. And his continued success is only evidence that even in the tough, world of professional sport, dreams do come true. When Chelsea, announce him as the manager later this week, it will be the ninth time in succession that a foreign manager will take over at Stamford Bridge. Following on from Ruud Gullit, Gianluca Vialli, Claudio Ranieri, Jose Mourinho, Avram Grant, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti will be Andres Villas-Boas who has only two years of experience as a manager. None of them lasted very long though, certainly not in the way Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger have. Hopefully Villas-Boas’ will be able to bring the Blues the kind of success that Abramovich needs or he too could end up as just another name on that list. It’s still early days, though.