José Mourinho, the anti-Barcelona, stands alone in modern football

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The Chelsea manager is close to seeing his team win the Premier League but of everyone involved in the Barça team in the 1990s, from Pep Guardiola to Julen Lopetegui, he is the outcast who now revels in his role as the dark lord
Sid Lowe: Barça’s philosophy makes them coaching incubator for top clubs
Modern football was invented in Barcelona in the mid-90s. Of this season’s Champions League quarter-finalists, four sides are managed by players who turned out for Barça in 1996: Pep Guardiola, Luis Enrique, Julen Lopetegui and Laurent Blanc. Within a couple of years, they had been joined by Frank de Boer and Phillip Cocu as well as the coach Louis van Gaal and his assistant Ronald Koeman. In slightly differing ways, the eight are apostles for the Barcelona way – or, more accurately, given the influence of Ajax on that style, the Barçajax way. However, there was another presence there, initially as a translator and then as a coach. In the Barçocracy of modern football, there is a fallen angel.
In the modern world, at least at elite level, José Mourinho stands alone. At the greatest coaching seminar the world has seen, when the game as we know it was shaped, but he did not draw the same lessons everybody else did. The other eight espoused the proactive, possession-based football seeded at the club by Vic Buckingham, developed by Rinus Michels and taken to new levels by Johan Cruyff.
Related: Barcelona’s winning philosophy makes them coaching incubator for top clubs | Sid Lowe
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