Jose Mourinho writes a weekly column entitled 'Hotel Chelsea' for the Portuguese sports daily 'Record'.

In this section read a translated summary of Mourinho's fascinating insights.

10 October 2005

Cruyff’s wisdom

After winning the Champions League with Porto I could quite happily have called it a day and wiled away the hours playing golf and criticising the work of others. It could have been the start of a beautiful story, but this is not and will never be my story.

It sounds more like Johan Cruyff’s. After leaving Barça he has managed to remind everybody that he was European Champion and help people forget that whenever he won the Spanish League it was on the last weekend and only because of other results - in Tenerife and in Coruña - not to mention the fantastic final when Milan, led by the pragmatic Capello, thrashed Cruyff’s team 4-0.

Since 1996 Cruyff has played golf and criticised others; since 1996 he has manipulated and used the power conferred to him by the fact he was a fantastic football player; since 1996 he refuses to re-enter the new reality of modern football; since 1996 football has been waiting for his teachings. I want him to come and teach me. I say it in all humility. I want him to teach me to be a better coach, because I don’t want to stop learning.

But he can’t teach me to be champion because I’ve done that three times, and I never had to rely on Djukic missing a penalty in the last minute of the last match. He can’t teach me to win the UEFA Cup because I’ve done that; he can’t teach me to be European Champion, because I’ve done that… And I don’t want him to teach me to get battered 4-0 in a Champions League final, because I don’t want to learn that.

I won the UEFA Cup in a spectacular 5-goal final, I won the Champions League 3-0 in the final, I won the Premiership with a record number of victories, my team is leading the Premiership with the highest number of goals scored.

May Cryuff come. Football has been waiting for him for ten years! And, if possible, may he come to the Premiership, where maybe he will learn that he is in the 21st century!

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