11/05/24
June 22, 2011
Chelsea appoint Villas-Boas as manager: Some punditry: Villas-Boas must rejuvenate Chelsea in a hurry. 33 years old and looks like the second coming of the Special One--can't wait to see how Special1TV plays this. Led Porto to an undefeated league season and won the Europa League with an attacking 4-3-3/3-4-3 formation. Spent Mourinho's years at Chelsea leading the opposition scouting operation and given the player holdovers knows most of them well.
posted by billsaysthis to soccer at 11:55 AM - 5 comments
He's going to have a lot of work to do keeping all those egos in check.
posted by flannelenigma at 01:15 PM on June 22, 2011
holden, he also had most/all his pre-Porto experience working for Mourinho. But he definitely has done better on the interpersonal skills curriculum ;)
posted by billsaysthis at 08:06 PM on June 22, 2011
bill -- wasn't picking on your characterization; it's all over the British press. I do realize he was on Mourinho's staff, my point was just let's not jump to the conclusion that because he is Portuguese, came from the same club, and was Mourinho's assistant that he is going to be Jose 2.0.
posted by holden at 11:38 PM on June 22, 2011
I was thinking of 2.0 as VB having learned the lessons from the Special One's oh so specialness, that is, as a good development.
posted by billsaysthis at 11:45 AM on June 24, 2011
I think this will be a good hire, assuming there is some patience with him as the team is rebuilt. Surprised they did not go for a more established name, but if Hiddink fell through, not sure there were many other options along those lines. I think the comparisons of Villas-Boas to Mourinho are somewhat lazy -- they obviously both came from Porto and both won a European competition, but it seems that Villas-Boas has a fairly different persona than Mourinho (at least towards the media; his ability to build rapport with players has been compared to Mourinho's) and his team seems to have played a more attacking and open style than Mourinho's teams are known for.