His two UEFA Champions League trophies, one UEFA Cup, three English Premier League titles, one English FA Cup, a Spanish La Liga titles, two Italian Serie A titles as a head coach, along with four Club Coach of the Year awards. These are only the brightest highlights from Mourinho’s career.

 

He won his prestigious Champions League titles with Internazionale (of Italy) and FC Porto (of Portugal). Only four times since 2000 has the Champions League been won by a team outside England, Spain or Germany — two of those were Mourinho’s teams.

 

Why, then, was the self-proclaimed “Special One” fired from the Manchester United hot seat last month?

 

The media hailed and adored him in those days for his velvety-soft touch in man management. He kept every player – even the biggest of egos – content with his particular place in the squad to the point where they were willing to defend the manager on the playing field at all costs. Inter players were reportedly in tears when Mourinho informed them of his imminent move to Real Madrid after winning 2010 Champions League final.

 

Oddly, since those European titles, his managerial stops have all been tainted by infighting with squad personnel.

 

At Real Madrid, it was a very public battle with captain and long-time club goalkeeper Iker Casillas, whom Mourinho believed to be a “rat” leaking valuable team information to the outside world. Before bitterly leaving, he said, “I want to be where people love me.”

 

On his return to Chelsea in 2013, it was a messy spat with club physician Eva Carneiro that began after he verbally insulted her during a match against Swansea, ending in court. Later, Mourinho reportedly alienated senior Chelsea players.

 

Most recently, at Manchester United, he indirectly called star midfielder and World Cup winner Paul Pogba a “virus” while refusing to play him in his favored attacking position — or, sometimes, not playing him at all. This ultimately forced many of the players to take Pogba’s side and, effectively, wait for Mourinho’s inevitable firing.

 

All of this – the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly – boils down to two questions: what has changed, and what is next for the once-elite Mourinho?

 

Each of the aforementioned dramas escalated in part due to a terribly toxic relationship with the same media members who once praised him. It was an unfortunate Catch-22; the media in Spain and England questioned Mourinho as issues started to arise, and Mourinho made no effort to hide his annoyance. The media saw the venomous snake emerging in Mourinho and charmed it out to fill their pages.

 

Mourinho gave the impression that he always wanted to be the center of attention. He didn’t care from where the attention came or how he got it — as long as his quotes were on the front pages. When his teams were winning, things took care of themselves — he was celebrated. When results turned, though, Mourinho desperately lashed out at his own players, opposing managers and even the clubs that employed him in order to create a story.

 

In the past, this attention-grabbing tactic had been hailed as a way to shift blame from his team and take the pressure off of the on-field play. In recent years, this has been replaced with a boyishly-obnoxious petulance.

 

So, from where could the next paycheck for the “Special One” come? His time with Europe’s top teams is surely over, is it? Maybe he’ll return to his native Portugal with league heavyweights Benfica, or wait for the country’s national team job to become vacant. These seem the only plausible moves for a manager whose stock has fallen in the eyes of everyone but himself.

 

Unbelievably, this isn’t exactly true. The well-connected Spanish soccer journalist Sid Lowe, who has written books on Real Madrid and La Liga, thinks there’s more than an outside chance Mourinho will return to Madrid.

 

According to Lowe, club president Florentino Perez “believes that Mourinho is the [manager] he’s had the closest relationship with.”

 

“There’s a bit of [Perez] now that almost hankers for Mourinho’s return, but also recognizes that this would be problematic,” said Lowe.

 

An angry, stubborn and unsuccessful version of Mourinho returning once again to arguably the biggest team in the world? We’ll likely find out at the end of this season, but, theoretically, the must-see drama writes itself.