When Mourinho ghosted Eto'o to get best out of him

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The Champions League knockout stages are under way and Inter Milan are preparing to travel to Stamford Bridge with a one-goal first-leg lead to their name, following a 2-1 triumph in the San Siro a few weeks earlier.

Inter manager Jose Mourinho should be worrying about how to protect that slender lead against his former employers.

Having won the Champions League in 2004 with Porto, his career in Europe since then has been one of near-misses and might-have-beens, most notably with the 2005 ghost goal semi-final defeat against Liverpool while managing Chelsea.

Mourinho is indeed knee deep in one of his meticulous, manipulative, man-management moments that he hopes will become a masterclass, but could just as easily backfire spectacularly.

The pre-match news conference surely? An incendiary remark about the opposition? Or an outlandish dig at the referee appointed for the big match?

'Samuel won us that quarter-final'

Mourinho has been infamous for his emotional pre-match mind games throughout his career. The pre-match news conference effectively acting as a de-facto kick-off for the game itself.

But, usually, this manipulation was trained on the opposition, not his own squad. So, how did Eto'o react?

"Samuel won us that quarter-final against Chelsea. He scored the winning goal at Stamford Bridge. He played a fantastic match," says Mourinho of a performance from Eto'o that saw him score the only goal and send the Italian side through to the quarter-finals of a tournament they would go on to win.

"He was such a strong guy that I knew that he would react the way he did react."

'It's a bullish approach'

How to Win the Champions League: Jose Mourinho focuses on the Portuguese manager's two Champions League triumphs - in 2004, with Porto, and that 2010 win with Inter.

Modern-day Mourinho has had his man-management sometimes called into question - think Dele Alli at Tottenham and Paul Pogba at Manchester United.

But, as the Portuguese manager happily explains, and Eto'o embodied, Mourinho, circa 2010, was in his perfect phase of extracting the best from his players. It's a bullish approach that feels a little outdated in the current climate of player power - but, as Eto'o and Mourinho explain, it worked perfectly back then.

"It made me extremely happy that... Mourinho told me he needed me to do something particular," Eto'o said at the time. "He wanted a very disciplined role and, because I respect him so much, I said, 'Yes, coach' and stuck to my task exactly."

Fifteen years later, in a west London hotel, Mourinho is similarly happy to reflect on his methodology.

"That individual way of communicating, of motivation, is always something very, very important," he says. "There is no secret. It is just to look at each one of them, to know them, to understand them, and to deal with them as a complete individual. Like you would if you had one son and one daughter. You cannot educate both in the same way because they are different."