JOSÉ MOURINHO: TABLE-TOPPER AND chart-topper. His success may be inimitable, but his voice is not. An album of sketches featuring an uncanny impression of the Chelsea manager went to No 1 in Ireland and the parodies will be released here next month.
They are the work of an Irish comedian, Mario Rosenstock, who played Roy Keane in I Keano, the musical about the former Manchester United captain. Rosenstock began impersonating Mourinho on a radio show and the news spread to Stamford Bridge. “Word came back that José loved it and played one of the sketches in the car for his kids,” Rosenstock said.
The comedian was invited to perform for the squad before Chelsea’s game against Everton last October. “I entered the room in character as Mourinho, wearing an Armani overcoat and a scarf, chewing gum, my tie was undone and my shirt was open. I just stood in the room staring at them and they started laughing,” he said.
“I walked up to the microphone and basically conducted a press conference as José Mourinho, taking questions from Chelsea staff, telling the players to shut up and eat their vegetables. I remember Eidur Gudjohnsen and Petr Cech being extremely polite, John Terry and Frank Lampard being more laddish. Myself and Mr Mourinho sat there for about 45 minutes afterwards talking about everything from my work to Liam Brady’s period at Juventus in 1982 and how José believed that Roy Keane should be manager of Ireland because he’s a hero and ‘heroes are untouchable’.
“Damien Duff wasn’t there because he was injured. One of the team minders rang him and passed over the phone, and said ‘the gaffer wants to talk to you’. As José, I told him I wanted him in the team tomorrow. Damien was like, ‘I can’t, my ligaments . . . ‘If you don’t, I sell you to Walsall, one and a half million . . .’
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“I tapped into something very Slavic in his voice. The other side that is good with him is bluntness, pure bluntness. I think in the media he’s portrayed very much as a surly individual. Certainly the side I saw was more than willing to burst out laughing and have good craic.”
A single with two skits — José and His Amazing Technicolor Overcoat and an Aretha Franklin parody, I Sign a Little Player or Two — is released in the UK on February 20. Meanwhile, Rosenstock is mining the comic potential of the Steve Staunton and Sir Bobby Robson Ireland managerial double-act and is growing more interested in Martin Jol, the Tottenham Hotspur head coach. “He sounds like a cross between a Tasmanian Devil and a Dutch DJ, he’ s got a great voice,” he said.