Mourinho started his Real Madrid managerial career with a Mourinho'sque win over Espanyol.

Match had everything which are usual in a match involving a Mourinho team. Labourius, disjointed, hard fought and a dramatic win to end with.

It was exactly entertaining as he once said, eight years ago in a press conference during his Manchester United tenure

"Entertaining is emotions until end, is open result until end, is everybody on their seat until end, is both dugouts nervous and tense with the unpredictability of the result until the end. That's for me, not as a manager, but as a football lover, is entertaining" - Jose Mourinho.

It was exactly like that, a nail-biting, seat-handle-grabbing match until the end. You would, most probably, fall asleep while watching in midnight due to time zone difference, if it would have been 3-0 or 4-0 by half time, being almost certain that your team is going to win. You would prefer to go for a smoke or a non football chat with your family or friends or for a work you feel important, instead, match kept the critics glued to the screen in the hope to witness the unravelling of Jose from the get-go and kept fans glued to the screen praying for a miraculous win. It would not be far fetched to expect few sports writers/columnists, might have finished writing few paragraphs about how football has gone past Mourinho, for their next sports column/article.

Match certainly started with a lively, attacking Real Madrid, then after being ahead in 10 minutes, with a clever free kick by Arda Güler and a fine header by Jude Bellingham into the Espanyol's net, suddenly tempo went lethargic and Espanyol gradually took over the control scoring the equaliser by Alex Calatrava in half an hour mark.

It had everything for a post match drama, like Fede Valverde hitting the post, Álex Calatrava kicking L4/L5 of Vinicius or putting Fellaini like substitution of Carlos Espi in last minutes to score the winning goal, in order to twist the post match narrative, had result been somewhat different.

Then at the end, both critics and fans found themselves in a strange situation of disbelief about the stats. While match itself felt like Espanyol having the upper hand, in reality Real Madrid was dominant in all aspects of the game. This is another Mourinho masterclass, where his teams almost always give the opposing team a false sense of being in control.

In early decade of Mourinho system, his team usually sits back in their own half, being happy to surrender the ball possession, the infamous 'Park the Bus' strategy where other team feels like they are in control of attacking while Mourinho team actually scores more goals than the other team and eventually wins the match. It is like a poke in the eye, "You keep the ball, we will keep the result".

Seems this time around, Jose's strategy is somewhat changed. These days, Mourinho's team keeps more ball possession while still giving other team a false sense of attacking control. We all, both the fans and critics and even match commentators included, invariably felt, it is Espanyol's game but eventual winner turned out to be Real Madrid.

It has always been the speciality of the Special One, to show us something else while taking away the very thing under our nose which we did not believe during watching the match, the winning of Real Madrid.

This time he is doing the same thing in a different way, like "The same old wine but in a new bottle".