To relive Daniel Mourinho's harrowing first foray into management (2013-15), please visit my first story. I'll provide something of a summary here, but my managerial debut is certainly worth the read. For those who didn't follow, it will be a narrative-driven story with the emphasis on the characters as opposed to the oft-dreary slag of match reports. Feel free to contribute tactical or narrative ideas in the comments. Enjoy the ride!


May 1, 2018
Thessaloniki, Greece

http://www.royal-hotel.gr/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/City-Break-Thessaloniki.jpg

It's hard to believe it's been nearly three years since the accident.

After the proper night of celebration that followed our Third Division triumph away to Sao Joao, our Varzim squad eased out of the village on our rented coach. The players, staff and club administrative staff were positively buzzing, both from the cheap champagne and the momentous occasion. We'd earned promotion with a club that was financially deep in the red, with waning fan support and a trail of dead bodies — including my own grandfather, the mysterious Mourinho Felix — behind it.

The club of my orphaned childhood, of my poor hometown of Povoa de Varzim, was going to return to the Segunda Liga. It was easy, sitting on the coach following our nationally-televised victory over S.J. Ver to clinch promotion, to picture the club returning to the heights of the Primeira Liga.

Then, it all went black.


The club emerged remarkably well from the accident — I did not.

After tendering my resignation to deal with the personal issues stemming from the crash, I sank into a deep depression. As I spiralled downwards, rarely leaving the alcohol-drenched darkness of my beachfront condo, the club rose from the ashes.

Longtime Porto youth coach and former Portuguese international Nuno Capucho was named as my successor, and I, like everybody else in our small beachside town, cried when Capucho's first season — the club's first in the second division since 2011 — culminated with a surprise promotion.

In 2016-17, the club's wheels fell off in its first Primeira Liga campaign in 15 years. Varzim's corrupt board and ridiculously meagre wage budget doomed the club, and Capucho, to its fate: Four wins in 34 matches and a one-way ticket back to the second tier.

I moved from Povoa de Varzim to Greece midway through that season, once it became clear that top-flight football was not sustainable for my town's team. The alcohol was cheaper, the sun burned brighter and I was largely anonymous.

I've been here for a year, stumbling around in the proverbial weeds of Greece. Football-wise, I'm out of the loop — I'll occasionally watch the local third-division side, but that's it. The game has soured on me, and my future is not clear.

My father, José, has fallen back out of touch. After being dangerously involved in my life during my time at the helm of Varzim, he stopped answering my calls once I left football.

I'm a shell of what I once was — an ambitious task-master, one of the brightest stars in the Portuguese game — and I hate what I have become. You can check the boxes of my previous life: father José (not in contact), grandfather Mourinho Felix (long in the ground), Varzim S.C. (nearing administration and the laughingstock of Portuguese football).

I am broken.

Daniel Mourinho
Born: Feb. 26, 1989

Youth Career: Varzim S.C. (1996-2005), Chelsea F.C. (2005-2008)

Professional Career: Norwich City (2009-2012, 11 goals in 70 appearances), Southend United (2013, 1 goal in 8 appearances)

Managerial Career: Varzim S.C. (2013-15), Niki Volou FC — U19s Coach (2018)

The alarm blares to life beside my bed. It's 3:00 a.m.

The Latvian prostitute curled up next to me stirs briefly before I slam it off.

"Get out," I grumble. This is what's become of my life; with no players to manage, no youth team to purvey, and no tactical planning for an upcoming fixture, my life revolves around booze and shady company on the seedy side of Greece's biggest tourist trap.

Our bus was airborne for four seconds before slamming down in a ditch next to the dark, northern Portuguese highway. In an instant, I lost 22 of my closest colleagues and friends. 'How does one bounce back from that,' I ask myself as I reach for the near-empty Grey Goose bottle on my pillow.

*bzzzt*

"Hello," I mumble groggily. Who in their right mind would be calling me at 3 a.m.?

"Daniel, sou Pedro Faria, tenes momento," a voice asks in Portuguese on the other end of the line. "I remember what you did for us."

Thought bubbles. Pedro Faria, Portugal. Didn't ring a bell.

"Who is us," I reply, guarded.

"Varzim, son — your club, your city, your blood," shouts Faria. "We just fired Nuno Almeida after finishing 11th in the Segunda Liga. Have you got a moment?"

And so it goes. Three years after the crash, and a year and a half after my move to Greece, the old club came calling.

"I'm not a manager anymore," I say, carefully watching the Latvian prostitute as she passes my wallet and keys at the door. "I'm busy with a few non-football pursuits, which I should really be tending to."

"Cut the crap," Faria says sharply. "We know you're living in a Greek dive, and have been since you stopped hanging around the Estadio. I'm offering you a chance to restore some of your former club's dignity."

Dignity.

As though there was any of that left to be had after 18 months of benders, unfilled tax forms and unopened interview requests from exotic-sounding clubs in far-flung places like Kenya and Hong Kong.

"What're the terms," I say with notable disinterest.

"One year, €185,000. You get us back to the top division, no questions asked," retorts an equally-interested Faria. "Have you still got some bottle yet?"

I think of the former players. The faces that disappeared in the blink of an eye; Onyeka, signed from Leix?es nearly four years ago, Nelsinho, my 35-year-old ironman in the midfield, and Tiago Ronaldo, the Varzim golden boy that never was. All gone in the blink of an eye, on a sharp turn of the A-28 highway north of Porto that fateful night.

Would they want me to take to the dugout again? To wear the colours of the club they died representing?

"I'm in."

POVOA DE VARZIM —

The directors of Varzim S.C. unveiled Daniel Mourinho as the club's new manager this afternoon during a press conference at the club's downtown stadium.

Mourinho, 29, left the footballing world three years ago in the wake of the tragic Varzim bus crash. The club lost seven first-team players and a number of key backroom staff in the accident, which claimed 22 lives.

"It's going to be a unique challenge, trying to move out from under the shadow of that, coupled with 2016-17's ugly relegation," admitted Mourinho, who had been living in Thessaloniki and coaching part-time football in the Greek lower leagues in recent years. "Personally, it's going to be difficult to walk the same halls, take training at the same place, and manage in the same stadium with all of the memories of those who perished that terrible night."

Though many of the journalists present questioned Mourinho's appointment, his track record over two years at the head of Varzim was good. The illegitimate son of football legend and current Paris Saint Germain boss José, Mourinho was able to steer the club out of financial difficulties and earn promotion to the Segunda Liga in 2014-15.

"We had significant success here, and built a culture of not only winning but playing proper football in a very short period of time," reflected an emotional Mourinho. "Now it's time to build a new culture — this is a club that should regularly play top-flight football, and I now intend to finish the job I started five years ago."

Varzim chairman Pedro Faria, the 82-year-old brother of former VSC chairman Manuel Faria, voiced his full support for Mourinho in his second stint with the club.

"He's somebody with deep ties to our club, our city and our supporters," said Faria, whose younger brother's spats during Mourinho's previous tenure were often public. "We need to bring stability and pride back to this club, and we as a board firmly believe in Daniel's capabilities."

In addition to being the illegitimate son of José, Mourinho's family ties into the very fabric at the Estadio do Varzim S.C. — his grandfather, Mourinho Felix, played at and then managed the club during the 1970s and 1980s.

With the club's players on holiday through the month of June, Mourinho's first task will be in sorting through the myriad loan deals and back-loaded contracts passed on to him by predecessor Nuno Almeida.

"We're going to assess the situation, the current squad, and then make whatever changes we feel necessary," explained Mourinho. "There are good pieces and a decently strong youth setup here, so we feel we're in a good position to challenge for the Segunda Liga this season."