'Mourinho has child-like qualities, an innocence married to cunning and ruthlessness that confuses critics and opponents but, more importantly, galvanises his players. They call him José. He comforts them when they are down, laughs with them on the training pitch, and embraces them in victory or defeat.
The temptation to paint Mourinho as a kid in charge of the world's most magnificent toyshop proves irresistible for many. To some, he hasn't earned his spurs in Halifax or Swindon, say, and he wasn't a proper player (true). He lacks the forbidding gravitas to match their expectations - only because they have grown up with managers who talk down rather than across, who have ruled in the old-fashioned Busby way.
There was nothing wrong with that. But the world has changed. The top flight, and much of the undercarriage, of football in this country is a cosmopolitan mix of cultures and attitudes. It is a considerably more complex environment than in the days when managers were routinely called 'The Gaffer'. And Mourinho is decidedly more in touch with it than many of his peers.
Some day, his keen-eyed critics might come to regard him as they regard Arsène Wenger, himself a football polymath and, with Mourinho and Iain Dowie, the only manager in the Premiership to have a university degree. At Highbury last week Wenger was again afforded the sort of reverence that would embarrass a pope, even in defeat. In Milan, Sir Alex Ferguson, another loser in Europe, was also quoted as if he had the power to forgive sins and grant low-interest fixed mortgages.
Wenger and Ferguson have earnt the right to be taken seriously. Their long-term achievements tower above those of others in the Premiership. But they are not gods. They are experienced campaigners coming to terms with a fast-shifting landscape towards the end of their distinguished careers. And they are on sometimes shaky legs.
In stark contrast, Mourinho is young at heart. He talks to his flash young squad not just in Portuguese or Spanish or French or English but in the language of the time. He's cool, not frozen. He encourages his players, as well as leading them, and the key elements in their understanding are respect and discipline, very grown-up concepts.'