The methods of Mourinho

Jose Mourinho is a winner. It's as simple as that, and he knows it.

Following Champions League success with Porto, Mourinho made the inevitable move to Chelsea and picked up a stack of silverware in England too.

For various reasons, things went a bit tits-up for Jose at Stamford Bridge roughly a year ago, and he bowed out of the Premier League.

Now, though, The Special One is back in football. And he's in a proper league. Over the summer it was announced that Mourinho was joining Italian serial champions Internazionale.

Inter fans are understandably confident in Mourinho's ability to make his side champions for the fourth season on the bounce. Their squad is pretty impressive, and the players are already falling for their new boss - it seems the team spirit he built at Chelsea is now prevailing at the Nerazzurri's training facility.

So how does he do it?

In September's Calcio Italia, Inter frontman Julio Cruz reveals a few of Mourinho's methods. It certainly throws some light on why the players have such respect for their coach and each other. It's impressive stuff.

The first thing that struck me about Cruz's interview was that Mourinho likes his players to work, at length, with a football at their feet. As I wrote a long old while back at Soccerlens, I'm a big advocate of training in constant contact with the ball. It just seems obvious to me that the best way to help a player to become, or continue to be, a natural footballer, is to develop a love for the ball. Forgive the hippyism.

It's all about being at home with the ball. If you learn to run with the ball, pass the ball, know the ball, then you'll be a natural with the ball at your feet. It wouldn't be right to indoctrinate kids into some kind of pseudo-religious affection for a pig's bladder, but developing natural technical ability should be encouraged. That includes players at Inter's level. Mourinho seems to agree.

Jose also coaches his players by way of some clever specific routines, none of which are new, I bet. Inter play a training game involving three goals. It's confusing and unorthodox, which is why it encourages players to think and to concentrate. More importantly, it forces them to conjure up creative and inventive solutions to every possible attacking and defending scenario. Two birds, one stone. Mourinho is a clever man.

My favourite training set-up mentioned by Julio Cruz is one in which Inter's squad plays two games on adjacent pitches, with Mourinho marshalling both matches from a narrow corridor of grass between the two. Every few minutes, the boss blows a whistle and calls out the name of a player (or players). They must swap pitches, and immediately set up a move with the ball.

Again, it's confusing, so it promotes concentration, awareness and adaptability. It also has the side effect of making the skills and movements more important than the result, by virtue of the fact that the teams are so fluid. The players always have to be on their toes.

Cruz also revealed a certain level of positional differentiation at Inter training. That is, attackers and defenders undertake many exercises independently of one another. The different positions work and develop as cells, meaning that specific skills and exercises can be addressed on a more focused basis.

The famous Mourinho team spirit is no mistake. The real eye-opener of Dominique Antognoni's story is Inter's head tennis practices. Why? Because it has a competitive edge which could cause cliques at other clubs. I can just imagine what would've happened if David O'Leary (eugh) had asked the ex-Sunderland boys to play against the Scandinavians at Aston Villa. Not pretty.

But that's effectively what Jose does: the Brazilians play the Argentinians, the Italians from one region play the Italians from another. It's competitive, and it's risky. But it develops a will to win, and in a squad which is a) successful and b) managed by a team spirit merchant like Mourinho, it's more likely to result in cameraderie than fights.

Perhaps the biggest source of the Mourinho spirit at Inter (and presumably Chelsea) is the manager's solidarity with the players. Jose has been known to run with the players in torrential rain. It engenders respect between the boss and his charges. It means the players will want to work and play for their manager. And that Mourinho joins in suggests that a team spirit is in place already at Inter, from the Special One down.

Does this mean Inter have the Scudetto sewn up once more? Their performance against Sampdoria last week suggests not. But I wouldn't bet against them with the Portuguese in charge.

(Photo Credit: Sky Sports)