The worst-kept non-secret in sport is finally out. Jose Mourinho will, barring last-ditch turbulence, be appointed Manchester United manager, the consummation of an epic, slow-burn seduction that has hovered behind the headlines for six months.
For United’s players, Saturday’s FA Cup final victory against Crystal Palace has turned out to be less a new dawn, more a kind of Viking funeral for the Louis van Gaal era after two seasons of meandering stasis. Even as Van Gaal was marching into a sullen Wembley press conference with the trophy under his arm, pictures were filtering through of Mourinho just across town at the David Haye fight, looking coy and sultry and pregnant with mischief.
Van Gaal is a revered football coach, for all the social media snark and newspaper ribbing he has attracted during his time at this drifting, stalled Manchester United. But this was a humiliating experience: a proud man, sitting with the venerable shiny cup plonked defiantly on the table in front of him while the assembled global media were already peering over his shoulder at the next guy. How very Mourinho – ruthless even in absentia!
The talk now is of a three-year deal for Mourinho at Old Trafford, resolution at last of an extended public courtship curated by a cast of super-agents, deal-makers and willing media accomplices. Indeed, there is a feeling of delayed destiny about the whole process, a relationship that has sparked at one remove ever since the first sighting 12 years ago of this thrillingly handsome, absurdly young coach, sprinting along the Old Trafford touchline as his Porto team eliminated United from the Champions League.
The only real question now is: why so many people around the club, from fans to directors to associated media, seem to think this is unquestionably a good idea.
It might sound odd for such a successful coach but Mourinho to United is essentially a celebrity appointment. The only sense in which it resembles a perfect fit is as an injection of glitz, a burnishing of the brand. Mourinho does not deliver thrilling attacking football. In swapping him for Van Gaal, United have traded gruelling possession play for gruelling defensive counterattack, albeit with a cinematic presence gesticulating on the touchline.
Mourinho does not behave nicely. He does not bring young players through. He is as far from that more preciously nurtured idea of how United like to see themselves as the vampiric corporate owners, the Glazer family, for whom the club has simply been a wondrous source of income, the ATM that never closes.
And yet, such is Mourinho’s drive and United’s depth of resource there is still a strong argument this could all end up working out nicely. At the very least he will surely bring a return to the top four and Champions League football.
Above all he really, really wants this. As long ago as 2009, Mourinho was already pouting in United’s direction. In 2012 he thought he had the job once Sir Alex Ferguson was gone, only for United to appoint the desperately paddling David Moyes. Mourinho has simpered and sweated and haggled for this opportunity. And now Heathcliff has finally got his hands on Wuthering Heights. It is unlikely to be dull.