![]() His exceptional gift as a manager has been to make his words sound like war drums in players' ears and having gone out on a limb following his side's patchy start to the season Ronaldo's goal triggered a war cry from him that was part triumph, a natural reaction when a game's carefully laid rhythm explodes in the last 15 minutes and you ultimately emerge unscathed, and part defiance of the doubters. This was more Mourinho contra mundum than any match preceding it, about his judgment and methods as much as his team's. In the past at times there has been an element of calculation about it but this was spontaneous, probably tinged with relief after beginning the week by criticising some of his squad and changing the team. On Tuesday night, however, when celebrating Cristiano Ronaldo's late, dramatic winner against Manchester City with the knee-slide once-favoured by Billy Bremner and revived by Didier Drogba he seemed even more delirious. Pitting the Portuguese and his team against the world is a familiar pre-match ploy and when vindication comes, he expresses his euphoria physically. ![]() In football the master of limelight larceny, José Mourinho, needs no such tricks. T owards the end of their acting careers and particularly in cameo roles, Peter Lorre and the theatrical knights Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud perfected the art of scene stealing, throwing in improvised lines designed to disconcert, flamboyantly drifting off their marks to hog the shot or generally "chewing the scenery".
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