Jose Mourinho kept slapping me until it hurt after iconic Manchester United moment
10.03.2024 - 05:41
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Benni McCarthy might be on the Manchester United coaching staff now, but he was also the chief protagonist of one of the most memorable Old Trafford moments in the last two decades.
This wasn't one of those occasions of a memorable United comeback. It wasn't a famous Old Trafford European night. At least it wasn't for the home team. It's Tuesday, March 9, 2004, and McCarthy's free-kick for Porto in the dying seconds of a Champions League second-leg tie is pushed away by Tim Howard, straight into the path of Costinha, who slots the ball into the empty net.
But it's not the goal that everyone remembers. That's not why we're still talking about it 20 years later. It's what happens next. As Porto's players celebrate the goal that will knock United out of Europe by the corner flag, a still relatively unknown 41-year-old coach sets off down the touchline, his black coat flapping behind him, before piling into the celebrations.
This was the day Jose Mourinho went from a promising coach in Portugal to football's next big thing. It was, arguably, the day the mythology of the special one was born.
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United had been beaten in the first leg a couple of weeks earlier on a night when Quinton Fortune gave them the lead, only for McCarthy to score twice against the club he idolised as a child. Roy Keane was sent-off and Ferguson wasn't happy.
Ferguson said Mourinho was "full of it" that night, calling the Scot "big man" and "boss", but the Porto boss fired a shot across the bows post-match with the kind of searing put down he would trademark over the years to come.
“I understand why he is a bit emotional,” said Mourinho of Ferguson. “He has some of the top players in the world and they should be doing a lot better than that. You