LONDON - He returned to Chelsea from Real Madrid last summer declaring himself to be no longer the Special One he had declared himself to be on arrival for his first spell as Chelsea's manager in 2004.
Older and wiser, or so he said, after six years away mastering the fortunes of Inter Milan and Real Madrid, José Mourinho said he hoped henceforth to be known as the Happy One.
But there was little in his demeanor in the way of joy when Chelsea posted a dramatic comeback win over Paris St.-Germain in a Champions League quarterfinal on Tuesday with a scrambled goal in the 87th minute by a substitute striker, Demba Ba.
That gave Chelsea a 2-0 win for the night and a 3-3 score line over the two legs that handed victory to Chelsea on the away-goals rule (after last week's 3-1 loss in Paris), and a place in the semifinals for the fifth year in a row.
For all the relief at winning a game that had seemed until the closing minutes to be the Paris team's to lose, Mourinho ended the night much as he began it, a distinctly grumpy figure.
For months, he has been dissatisfied with a Chelsea season in which a seesaw of brilliant victories, like a 6-0 thrashing of Arsenal in the Premier League last month, have been interspersed with more disjointed performances like Tuesday's, and, often enough, losses in games Chelsea was a favorite to win.
For a few frantic seconds after Tuesday night's goal by Ba, Mourinho's 50-yard dash down the sideline to reach a triumphant pileup of his players looked like a self-conscious replay of a similar sprint much earlier in his career.
On that occasion, he raced down the sideline at Old Trafford in Manchester to celebrate the goal that gave his then team, Porto, an unexpected win over Manchester United that proved to be a prelude to a triumph in the Champions League final of 2004.
Winning that trophy put Mourinho on course for a career that has made him one of the most high-profile figures in European sports. He is also one of the highest-paid, with a salary at Chelsea in his second term that is said to be close to $25 million a year.
But after Tuesday night's game, Mourinho seemed pallid and drawn, almost displeased, and he was quick to dispute the suggestion that the touchline sprint had anything to do with celebration.
Television replays showed him reaching through the scrum of players to Fernando Torres.
'I didn't go to the corner flag to celebrate, I went to tell them the changes they had to make,' he said. 'There were three minutes plus extra time left and the way they were playing was too risky.'
As the referee gestured for the game to restart, Mourinho was telling his players, in particular Ba and Torres, to pull back into the defense in a bid, ultimately successful, to prevent P.S.G. from swarming the Chelsea goal in search of a fourth goal that would have won the series.
When the whistle blew after three minutes of injury time, the P.S.G. goalkeeper, Salvatore Sirigu, was in the Chelsea penalty area, leaping unavailingly for the ball on a final corner kick.
The goal by Ba, stretching out his left boot to scuff the ball into the net after it had deflected off an opponent, made a hero on the night of a player who has made only a handful of appearances for Chelsea this season, and had not played in a Champions League match since December.
Like Torres, Ba has had to bear weeks of implied disparagement by Mourinho, who has said he had no strikers he could trust.
It was an attitude that found its bluntest expression when Mourinho, never averse to contrariness, fielded a team for the Paris leg with André Schürrle, a midfielder, playing up front, and no regular striker on the field.
As much as that seemed like a rebuke to Ba, it was still more of an affront to Torres, who was Europe's most expensive player when he was bought by Chelsea from Liverpool for more than $80 million in 2011.
On Tuesday, Schürrle, assigned to the bench, was brought on as a replacement for the injured Eden Hazard after 18 minutes. His goal in the 32nd minute was the game's catalyst.
Post By http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/sports/soccer/jose-mourinho-delivers-a-victory-for-chelsea-in-the-champions-league.html
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