Inter champion of Europe: obrigado and farewell, Jose Mourinho

When Jose Mourinho joined Inter two summers ago, I wrote a post in this blog on how happy I was that my team have signed him. One comment, I received at the time, said that it would be a disaster for Inter.

Two years later, the comment turned out to be ridiculously wrong and my hopes vindicated. My expectations, in fact, were not only met, but actually overly surpassed, elevated to the cube, actually.

Jose Mourihno, in fact, after winning the Italian championship and the Italian Supercup in his first year at Inter, has won in the second year in chronological order: Italian Cup, another Italian Championship and, Saturday night, after a wait of 45 years for us, “nerazzurri fans”, the most dreamt for prize of all: the Champions League.

Mourinho managed the “treble”, something no other Italian team had ever managed before. However, just winning the Champions League alone, believe me, would have been bloody good enough for us.

Now, the Champions League is important for any team, but especially so for Inter. The last time we won the cup was 1965 and, just to draw a comparison, the other team of Milan, AC Milan, have won the cup 5 bloody times in the last 20 years. For us, at Inter, winning the cup was becoming an obsession.

But obsession turned into a dream after the double victory against Chelsea, and then it became a possibility after the heroic night at the Camp Nou against the “best team in the world” aka Barcelona, and then, after two wonderful goals of Diego Milito in Saturday’s final, it was a reality: Capitan Javier Zanetti raising the Champions League trophy in the Madrid’s night.

But although the players are actually the ones kicking the ball on the pitch, it was not going to be possible, this dream, without Jose Mourinho. The Special One, in just two years, has changed the team’s mentality and, like a true leader of the pack, has made the team believe that, yes, it was capable of winning the Champions League and the secret of that was to believe in him, in his tactics, in his leadership. Inter did that and Inter won.

And when the final whistle blew, Mourinho cried because he knew he had just achieved the greatest (so far) achievement of this career, winning the Champions League for Inter and in doing so, giving to Inter President Moratti the greatest prize of all.

The image of two of them, crying and hugging like excited kids, will be forever with Inter supporters. President Massimo Moratti had spent tons of money for fifteen years in order to bring Inter back to the top, replicating what his father Angelo did in the sixties. Mourinho understood what the cup meant for Moratti and he was happy to have made the dream a reality.

But Mourinho’s tears were not only of happiness, they were of sorrow too. Next season, very likely, he will not be at Inter. Like a true Mary Poppins of our times, he has done his job and he has to leave. He has taught Inter how to win the Champions League again, and Inter can carry on alone now. There is Real Madrid that needs to be taught on how to win it again.

So, after the greatest season I have experienced as an Inter fan, it is farewell and obrigado Jose Mourinho: Inter will manage also without you.

Life is like that, sometimes, and there is nothing nobody can do about it.