If Jose Mourinho leads Real Madrid to Champions League glory...

...will this make him the greatest manager of all time?

Love him or hate him, admire him or detest him there can be no argument that Jose Mourinho is THE football manager, thus far, of this millennium. Has there ever been a coach in the history of the game to have achieved such success in such a relatively small space of time with the club in which he has managed? The stats don't lie. The stats alone are staggering!

He's done it with the minnows, in European terms anyway, Porto. Champions League winners in 2004. I would very much doubt that we will see a team outside the 'major' leagues win it again. What Mourinho accomplished at Porto is somewhat forgotten to a degree. He won everything there was to possibly win with Porto. The Uefa Cup included. This alone is the stuff of legends.

He awoke the sleeping giant that is Internazionale. Had he left Italy with only a couple of Seire A titles his stock may have remained as it was or even stagnated a little but he put paid to that by guiding them to their first European Cup in 45 years. He totally transformed Inter's European history and needed only two years to leave his mark on that particular club. You only have to look at how that club is languishing right now to truly appreciate the job he did there.

In-between those two clubs was Chelsea. He never captured the holy grail as the blues boss so had to make do with two Premier League titles, one F.A Cup and two League Cups before setting off into the sunset. There are those that argue that his failure to bring the Champions League pot back to Stamford Bridge, given the resources at his disposal, may be a black mark to his achievements there. Chelsea fans will I'm sure beg to differ. Perhaps you think otherwise?

And here we are now. Real Madrid. The most celebrated club in the history of the sport period. By Madrid's standards their recent history is pretty bleak reading. Only three La Liga titles in the last decade with their last Champions League triumph coming way back in 2002 the job can have been construed as a poisoned chalice as such. Mourinho's first season was hardly anything to write home about but they did win the Copa Del Rey beating the monster that is Barcelona in the final. Probably a B season but a pot is a pot!

2012 and Real are odds on to recapture the La Liga title and are hot favourites to reach the Champions League final. Only two barriers stand in their way. A pretty decent Bayern Munich side and if they negotiate that then it's either Barca or Chelsea. The sensible money is on Barca but the romantic in me would love to see a Madrid/Chelsea showdown. What irony it would be if Chelsea were to stop Mourinho from being the first manager to win European Cups with three different clubs...but anyway...

Fast forward to 10pm May 19th and Mourinho is parading the Champions League trophy in front of a frenzied Madrid support in Munich. Does this make him the greatest manager of all time?

Cheers guys.

I think one of the things it comes down to is whether you think it's more impressive to achieve success at multiple clubs, build world-beating side at each one, win a lot, then move on and do it somewhere else or whether you think it's more of an achievement to stay at one club and win it time and again there. If you're the former, not many managers come close to Mourinho, and certainly by the end of his career I think he'll have been the best at doing that, but if you think the latter is better, than somebody like Sir Alex Ferguson will always challenge him.

I actually think that they both do similar things, they both build sides from the bottom up time and again, Ferguson may do it within Manchester United, but the most part he has built title winning sides time and time again, the same way Mourinho has across different clubs.

I think he's got a long way to be considered the greatest coach ever, but if his career stays on the same gradient it has travelled along so far, I can see him considered the best ever. I think he's probably the best manager in football at the moment, of all time, not yet, but I do think he's capable of it.

What Mourinho does better than anybody else in his profession is his ability to immediately make change. Now whether that is down to individual brilliance or his endearing qualities I don't know.

There is no doubt that we will never see a manager dominate a field with one club for two decades ala Ferguson again but it would have been interesting to have seen Ferguson test his mettle in Italy or Spain.

Mourinho has this universal crossover factor that perhaps no manager has never had?

The best ever, that's impossible to say, but IMO he's the best there currently is and by some distance too.