Courtois becomes ‘Thibaut the Terrific’ at Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea

The manager has managed to handle the sensitivities of two fine goalkeepers – Petr Cech and his successor – brilliantly, writes Ian Hawkey.

Thibaut Courtois has developed into a world-class goalkeeper who is likely to be at Chelsea for a decade. Paul Ellis / AFP

Jose Mourinho knows a little about the sensibilities of goalkeepers. He grew up with one, after all.

His father, Felix, a keeper whose club career stretched over almost two decades with Vitoria Setubal and Belenenses, had to snatch at his opportunities for honours: No league titles, a few cups, and one international cap.

Well, just about one official cap. Felix Mourinho got a few minutes as a late substitute for Portugal in a friendly tournament.

Mourinho took on a situation at the beginning of Chelsea’s triumphant Premier League season which threatened to test the sensitivities of two fine goalkeepers. One, Petr Cech, is a Mourinho ally from years back; the other, Thibaut Courtois, is likely to be a Chelsea fixture for the best part of the next decade.

Read more:

At the outset of the season, Mourinho said he felt comfortable with a squad that contained two world-class internationals in a position where only one could ever be selected.

“Any decision to put Petr, or Courtois, on the bench, is not a problem for me,” the manager said in August. Note the terms of address: Cech by his first name, familiar; the young Belgian still on surname terms.

Suffice to say that during the last eight months, the manager has come to know Courtois as Thibaut, even as “Thibaut the Terrific”. He has given his manager several reasons to refer to him in glowing terms. His athleticism and reaction speed, tied to the great physical assets of his 1.98-metre height and long reach, have a large share of responsibility for Chelsea owning one of the best two defensive records in English football’s top tier.

This time a year ago, Courtois was vexing Mourinho. The Belgian was in his third season on loan from the London club, who had acquired him as a teenager from Genk and identified Atletico Madrid as a good place to let him develop. He went straight to Spain.

It was an astute move. So essential did Courtois, 23, become to Atletico’s rise that he was part of the team that won the Spanish Primera Liga title last year, and who beat Chelsea in the Uefa Champions League semi-finals 12 months ago. Mourinho had sought a way to prevent the keeper from playing against his parent club but found none.

“For me, it was logical Courtois had to be back,” Mourinho said after that. “It would make no sense to have such a fantastic young goalkeeper and not have him.”

Expectation was that Cech, now 33, would leave at that point. But Mourinho values squads with depth, and that extends to the awkward position of back-up goalkeeper.

Mourinho has ensured Cech played enough matches to qualify for his fourth Premier League winner’s medal of a long and distinguished Chelsea career that probably will end this summer. He ensured Cech stayed this extra year, initially as second choice, because he knew that if Courtois failed to adapt to the English game, or sustained a long-term injury, he wanted standards not to drop.

Courtois, bar the odd positional error, has adapted. He is less vocal than Cech, a man 10 years his senior, and will inevitably need time to develop the second-nature understandings with stalwart defenders such as John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic that Cech nurtured through season after season working behind them.

Mourinho appreciates that, and he understands goalkeepers are a special case, with specific temperaments. His experience dealing with two senior No 1s still near the peaks of their careers has certainly been different at Chelsea this season than it was in his final year coaching Real Madrid.

There, he controversially dropped his club captain, and Spain’s, Iker Casillas, replacing him with Diego Lopez. It was a bold step that cost Mourinho support in the dressing-room and in the grandstands at the Bernabeu.

His treatment of Cech, and Courtois, has been a good deal more sympathetic and positive.

Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE