The Last Days Of Roma

How Jose Mourinho's time in the Italian capital came to an end

- Paddy Agnew

It was the look of despair on I Giuseppe's face that first sounded the alarm. Giuseppe, a lifelong Roma fan, works at the Vatican Press Office. It was the morning after Roma's mid-January Italian Cup elimination by city rivals, Lazio, and he was in total despair. Like a lot of Roma fans, he had only one thought in mind.

"Mourinho has got to go, he moaned, "and the sooner, the better".

You could argue that the sacking of Roma coach Jose Mourinho came as a surprise that flew in the face of the Portuguese guru's huge popularity with many of the club's fans. Yet the football realist would also point out that the recent Roma results under Mourinho had been disappointing.

On the day of Mourinho's dismissal, Roma stood ninth in Serie A, five points off the Champions League spots, while their current Europa League campaign sees them face Feyenoord in a February play-off for the next round. For the second-highest paid coach in Serie A (Max Allegri at Juventus is the highest), in charge of the club with the thirdhighest payroll in the league, these are not outstanding results.

If you really want to screw up in Rome, however, then lose yourself a derby, particularly one played just two months after a grizzly 0-0 draw in the first league derby of the season. A 3-1 away loss to Milan, just four days after that 1-0 defeat to Lazio, prompted the Friedkin family, Roma's owners, to pull the plug on the Special One.