File picture of Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho during the UEFA Champions League Second Round Second Leg match against PSG at Stamford Bridge, London.

By David Hytner, The Guardian/London

José Mourinho cannot help himself. Where his footballing enemies are concerned, he can bite his lip only so much. And when he perceives that one of them – or indeed, one of their spouses – has sent some sort of slur in his direction, the fall-out tends to be explosive.
Rafael Benítez’s wife, Montse, is hardly synonymous with outspoken critiques in the press; for blasting or taunting or aiming broadsides at various people or things. Her comments in the Spanish newspaper La Región about how her husband had coached at three of the clubs that were previously under the charge of Mourinho – Internazionale, Chelsea and now Real Madrid – and, consequently, had to “tidy up his messes” were pretty light-hearted.

Laugh it off Jose
Surely, this was something that Mourinho ought to have laughed off or, at least, made a better fist of sounding unbothered about, complete with better jokes. But this is Mourinho and Benítez – arguably, the rival who has irritated him the most and for the longest – and he lashed out in his press conference after Chelsea’s penalty shootout victory over Barcelona in Washington.
“For her [Montse] to think about me and to speak about me – I think she needs to occupy her time, and if she takes care of her husband’s diet, she will have less time to speak about me,” Mourinho said.
Nobody does withering quite like Mourinho and let us not be hypocritical here – the Guardian and every other newspaper loves it when he feels the red mist descend and the need for a highly quotable slaying. Mourinho is a rare breed in the sanitised environment of 21st-century football; a manager who says what he thinks – good, bad or ugly.
This fitted the latter category. It crossed the line and got into something personal. When a public figure mocks the physical appearance of a rival, it can leave only a sour taste. Mourinho, unwittingly, also entered dodgy territory with the suggestion that Montse should be in the kitchen cooking meals for her husband and, all in all, it was a moment when his judgment failed him.
It has happened before, as the Berkshire Ambulance Service, Unicef and Arsène Wenger would attest. Mourinho’s description of Wenger as a “voyeur” in 2005 was jarring and even he came to regret using such phraseology.
It will surely happen again. Mourinho can have the best of intentions, as was the case when he returned to Chelsea in 2013 for his second spell. He declared himself to be more mellow and insisted that there would be a truce with Wenger. Spool forward to February 2014, though, and there was Mourinho, slating Wenger as a “specialist in failure”. He had been piqued by Wenger’s claim that rival managers’ unwillingness to admit their teams were title contenders was born of a “fear to fail”.
Those who get under Mourinho’s skin stay there and Benítez has done so since 2004-05, when the pair were in charge of Chelsea and Liverpool respectively, and tackling their first seasons in the English game. The feud was fired when Liverpool edged past Chelsea in the Champions League semi-final in 2005, courtesy of Luis García’s controversial winner, and the barbs and the bickering have gone back and forth ever since.
There have been squabbles over style and tactics, ethics and finances, and the definition of success. This latest episode does Mourinho no credit.