IT WOULD not be the greatest comeback since Lazarus.
But if Jose Mourinho is back in charge of the “White House” of Real Madrid in the next week or so, football’s capacity for the unlikely would have stepped up another notch.
Less than a month ago, Mourinho was ignominiously sent packing from Manchester United.
The victim of what increasingly looks like a dressing room coup.
Unmourned. Unloved. Seemingly unwanted.
And yet, within a few weeks, things have changed.
Mourinho has, already, turned down the chance to go back to the club where he – albeit briefly, before resigning on a point of principle – first cut his managerial teeth, to fill the vacancy left by Rui Vitoria at Benfica.
Now, it seems, Real President Florentino Perez is on the brink of offering Mourinho the chance to return to the Bernabeu, five years after behind the scenes turmoil saw his first spell at the club come to an end.
Real is a very different beast to Benfica. A club which, despite all the chaos of this season, has an endless, infinite, capacity for reinvention.
And one which offers Mourinho the chance of completing his major career goal.
Let there be no doubting, the Portuguese, despite his problems at United – and the ones he encountered in his last half-season at Chelsea – still sees himself as a Special One.
He is driven by the pursuit of silverware. By the chance to write himself into the history books.
And while we are nearly a decade on from Inter’s 2010 Champions League win over Bayern Munich in Madrid, that laid the platform for Mourinho’s most critical target.
He wants, desperately, to become the first manager to lift the Champions League with three different clubs.
Real are not, by any means, favourites to win for an unprecedented fourth time this season. Indeed, many pundits think they could be eliminated by Ajax in the last 16.
But history tells us that no team is better at lifting itself from despair to the ultimate club glory in a matter of months.
It was not just in 2016, after Zinedine Zidane replaced Rafa Benitez and united a divided dressing room, that Real pulled that off.
Way back in 2000, after John Toshack had been replaced by Vicente del Bosque, they did it as well.
Indeed, ahead of their quarter-final first leg against United in Spain – the first knock-out stage at the time – the mood was beyond gloomy, with one press room doyen forecasting: “We fear the Apocalypse!”
Instead, it was the end of United’s world as they were destroyed at Old Trafford by Fernando Redondo’s masterclass.
Del Bosque, like Zidane was to do, fed off the lack of expectation to make something incredible happen.
And maybe, just maybe, after all the clouds of doubt and greyness he carried into Old Trafford, Mourinho can do the same. It is not beyond the realms of possibility.
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Of course, there will be issues, although only Sergio Ramos is left of the Madrid players who fell out so spectacularly with Mourinho first time round.
Then, of course, Ramos had key allies. Initially Iker Casillas but then, towards the end, as it became increasingly messy, even previous Mourinho disciples Pepe and Cristiano Ronaldo.
This time, though, Ramos is likely to accept a disciplinarian, in the short-term at least.
Real’s capture of Julen Lopetegui, which cut the legs of Spain’s World Cup ambitions, turned into a disaster, while initial hopes that Santiago Solari would be able to stem the flow of blood appears to have been dashed.
Sunday’s shock home defeat at the hands of Sociedad left Real in fifth, outside the Champions League slots, and 10 points adrift of Barcelona.
La Liga, is gone, with the serious – if, still, unlikely – possibility of Real missing out on the Champions League for the first time.
Perez has long regretted letting Mourinho go.
He is likely to believe that the only salvation for a season in chaos is to appoint an aggressive and demanding replacement for the Argentine.
That could, of course, be Antonio Conte. But, it seems, is more likely to be Mourinho.
Such an appointment would have knock-on effects.
Many at Spurs are more fearful that Mauricio Pochettino might be tempted by Real in the summer than United.
If Mourinho gets the gig, that option would, effectively, be closed off, for this summer at least.
Mourinho, you feel, would relish the chance to prove everybody wrong again. It is what he loves more than anything else.
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News Pictures Jose Mourinho on brink of Real Madrid return after they regretted letting him go in the first place
You don’t have to pack away your bikini just because you’re the wrong side of 20. These body-beautiful stars reveal their secrets to staying in shape and prove you can smoulder in a two-piece, whatever your age. Read on and be bikini inspired!
TEENS
Hayden Panettiere
Size: 8
Age: 18
Height: 5ft 1in
Weight: 8st
To achieve her kick-ass figure, Hayden – who plays cheerleader Claire Bennet in Heroes – follows the ‘quartering’ rule. She eats only a quarter of the food on her plate, then waits 20 minutes before deciding whether she needs to eat again.
Hayden says: “I don’t have a model’s body, but I’m not one of those crazy girls who thinks that they’re fat. I’m OK with what I have.”
Nicollette says: “I don’t like diets – I see it, I eat it! I believe in eating healthily with lots of protein, vegetables and carbs to give you energy.”
kim cattrall
Size: 10-12
Age: 52
Height: 5ft 8in
Weight: 9st 4lb
SATC star Kim swears by gym sessions with Russian kettle bells (traditional cast-iron weights) and the South Beach Diet to give her the body she wants. To avoid overeating, Kim has a radical diet trick – squirting lemon juice on her leftovers – so she won’t carry on picking.
Kim says: “I am no super-thin Hollywood actress. I am built for men who like women to look like women.”
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