Chelsea title triumph proves Mourinho is football's greatest winner

The Portuguese has answered the questions raised during his ill-fated spell at Real Madrid by building the best team in England within two seasons at Stamford Bridge.He might have returned to Stamford Bridge as ‘The Happy One’ two years ago but only now will Jose Mourinho be truly satisfied. Chelsea are Premier League champions for the first time in five years and despite his attempts to deflect attention at the moment of celebration, no one will have trouble identifying the man responsible for their return to the pinnacle of English football.Domination is the hardest thing to achieve in sport. Only the true greats can make it seem easy, routine, even boring. Mourinho has now won the Premier League at a canter in three of his five seasons in England and, given how vastly the landscape has shifted over the past 10 years, this latest triumph might be the most impressive of the lot.Chelsea are no longer, as Mourinho says, “the money club”. They are no little horse either but, unlike in his first spell, the Portuguese cannot call upon the full financial resources of Roman Abramovich to make his footballing vision a reality. Instead, the Blues have had to be smart, buying low and selling high in the transfer market while exploiting the loopholes in an imperfect loan system.That they have succeeded in transforming an ageing and unbalanced squad into a championship team within three years is a remarkable achievement, and a collective one. Mourinho identifies the players he wants but he is not the person who secures the necessary rebuilding funds by extracting £37 million for Juan Mata and £40m for David Luiz.Yet talent alone is not enough. Gifted and expensive Chelsea squads finished nine, 25 and 14 points adrift of the Premier League champions in the three seasons between Carlo Ancelotti’s double-winning campaign and the summer of 2013, when Mourinho’s return immediately made them contenders again.It’s what he does, wherever he goes. More than any other coach it is also how Mourinho defines himself, which is why a first personal league title in three years will serve, privately, as much-needed validation.The cult of the Special One took a bigger blow at Real Madrid than he would ever care to admit. Public tensions with Iker Casillas, Sergio Ramos and even Cristiano Ronaldo raised uncomfortable questions about whether Mourinho’s footballing outlook was truly compatible with the most talented players in the game.That chapter now looks a mere aberration. This Chelsea, founded on the defiance of John Terry, is a Mourinho team in the classic mould; their success a monument to his man-management and tactical brilliance.