We are being invited to reach for the tissues as Roberto Mancini and Rafa Benitez take their disgruntled leave of Manchester City and Chelsea respectively.
Humiliating, the way they have been treated.
Outrageous, going behind their backs to sign their replacements.
Appalling, to show them the door after they’ve achieved so much.
No crying shame: Roberto Mancini will get a big pay-off from City and walk into another jobThe Interim One: Benitez's 'plight' cannot be mourned - he is being lined up for other jobs
Oh, sob.
Oh, really?
So they’ve never responded, then, to approaches for jobs still occupied by others?
And wouldn’t those hang-dog expressions be all the more careworn if they weren’t being so handsomely compensated for the embarrassment?
These gentlemen should have been around when managers were paid a hundred grand a year – or less.
When men in their position could not afford the legal costs of suing clubs for the residue of their contract.
When failures in this short-term profession ended up on the dole, behind a pub bar or trying to eke out a coaching living anywhere from Tamworth to Timbuktu…..en route to Skid Row.
Mancini heads back to Italy with a reported £7million pay-off to go with similar remuneration for each of his three years at City. Once back in his homeland, he is expected to quickly find re-employment in Serie A.
He leaves behind in Manchester one FA Cup and City’s first English league championship since the days of cloth caps and baggy shorts.
Sounds fair to me.
Thai adventure: Bryan Robson (centre) had to manage in Thailand to make ends meetBenitez – who was out of work at the time of his appointment and told at the onset that he was a stop-gap – picks up a couple of million in pocket money for the few weeks’ work entailed in keeping Chelsea in the Champions League and, this week, snaffling the Europa-whatsit League.
Not too shabby.
And to ease any loss of pride, The Interim One is waiting on offers from elsewhere in the Premier League.
Seven million for Mancini? Sir Alf Ramsey earned seven thousand a year for leading England to World Cup glory in 1966.
Even thirty years on, Terry Venables was paid not much more than £100,000 a year while guiding England to the semi-final of Euro 96.
Compare Rafa’s handy bonus with Bryan Robson, a genuine giant of the English and world game, taking Middlesbrough to three Wembley finals and two promotions to the Premier League and then leaving ‘by mutual consent.’
Trophies not profits: Sir Alf Ramsey (second right) was not paid much to manage England but delivered a World CupDynamic: But Malcolm Allison ended up in a care home with friends and old colleagues paying the bills
That phrase, which translated into ‘not much money,’ was echoed at Bradford City, West Bromwich Albion and Sheffield United before Robson was obliged to keep some cash flowing by taking over the Thai national team.
He is now an ambassador for Manchester United, in proper gratitude to their longest-serving captain and one of the best and bravest players in their history.
We should feel sorrier for the Robertos and Rafas of this world if, after being kicked out, they were fretting over where the next pasta or paella was coming from.
Instead we remember Malcolm Allison. One of the most dynamic characters ever to excite the game finished his days in a care home where many of the bills were paid by Franny Lee and others who played under him at Manchester City and elsewhere…..or who simply admired him or were befriended by him.
We do not begrudge Mancini, Benitez and their ilk their good fortune. But what befell those who went before them – in many cases serious hardship – was the real disgrace.
There's just no keeping him out of the picture. Not when there’s a triumph to celebrate. Whether he has anything to do with it not. And never mind that he doesn’t play football very often these days.
He was at it again in Amsterdam. No sooner had Branislav Ivanovic headed the added-time winner against Benfica in the Europa League final than John Terry the suited spectator became John Terry in full playing kit rushing up to grab the trophy even as the captain on the night reached out to collect Chelsea’s latest item of silverware.
In focus: John Terry holds the Europa League trophy despite not playing in the finalFrank Lampard was barely visible.
It was the same last May when Chelsea won the Champions League final against Bayern Munich.
What we can’t work out is why he wasn’t out there on the Old Trafford pitch alongside Sir Alex Ferguson last Sunday. After all, he made a bigger contribution to the Manchester United legend than he did to any of Chelsea’s European finals.
Had Terry not missed his penalty in the shootout at the 2008 Champions League final, United would not have won their second European Cup which helped to secure Sir Alex’s legacy as the greatest of all managers.
So, in the tradition of the internet spoofs which followed Terry’s antics in Munich a year ago and which we are sure he finds amusing, here is the mocked-up photograph to complete his collection.
Making a mockery of him: Our mock up shows John Terry on the pitch with Sir Alex Ferguson after the boss's last game at Old Trafford
The principal song from Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit musical Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was Any Dream Will Do.
In 2005, it was reworked by satirist and DJ Mario Rosentock and sub-titled Jose And His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as a parody of Jose Mourinho, which Chelsea’s then (and soon to be now?) manager took in good part.
With Chelsea having been largely outclassed while winning this week’s Europa League final as well as last year’s Champions League final, it is time for Sir Andrew to add another tune to the club’s repertoire.
In the idiom of one of his most recent productions, we await The Luck That Never Dies.
As Chelsea make history by becoming the first British club to complete their full set of European trophies, some of us are old enough to remember fondly the two, not just one, steamy nights 42 years ago when they won their first.
Their opponents in Athens in May 1971, Real Madrid no less, were striving to revive European domination recent enough for their captain to be the legendary Francisco Gento.
Chelsea were overrun in the first match on the Wednesday evening.
Forward thinking: Chelsea's David Webb (No 6) joins the attack in the Real Madrid areaThe new great hope of the Bernabeu, Amancio, tore them apart with his skill and speed. But, uncannily like Fernando Torres against Benfica on Wednesday, Peter Osgood struck against the run of play just before the hour mark.
Not until the last minute did Ignacio Zoco equalise. There were no more goals in extra-time… and in those days no penalties to follow.
So on we stayed for Friday night’s replay, while most Chelsea fans reluctantly boarded the charter flights and others slept rough in the streets of Athens and took their chances on how they would get home.
Those who stayed were magnficently rewarded. Their team were transformed in a second match which turned into a tactical triumph for both their manager, the brilliant and now much-missed Dave Sexton, and one of the most talented footballers ever to wear the blue of Chelsea.
Sexton made only one change in personnel from his starting line-up for the first game of Bonetti, Boyle, Harris Hollins, Dempsey, Webb, Weller, Hudson, Osgood, Cooke, Houseman. He replaced Keith Weller with Osgood’s favourite striking partner, Tommy Baldwin.
Champion Chopper: Chelsea captain Ron Harris holds aloft the European Cup Winners' CupWithin that adjustment, he also eased his outrageously gifted Scottish winger Charlie Cooke into a slightly deeper starting position to the wide right of midfield.
Where Amancio had run riot in the first game Cooke played like a god in the second, turning and bewitching the left side of Real’s defence and creating chance after chance.
Osgood, the folk hero of The Shed, took one of them to put Chelsea ahead in the 33rd minute. John Dempsey came up from centre half to take another and double the lead just six minutes later.
The ageing Gento, exhausted by his exertions two days earlier, began the replay on the bench.
By the time he came on, with a quarter of an hour to go, Madrid the mighty were a beaten team… and the Chelsea of almost half a century ago had put down the first marker towards a treble completed with similar defiance of the odds by their successors within the last 12 months.
More... The King of the continent... Torres is reigning champion of Europa, Champions League, Euros and the World Cup Night after Euro triumph, Chelsea trio Mata, Oscar and Lampard pick up more trophies... Terry is there too, but not in his kit Suited then booted: Under-fire Terry has 'Amsterdam 2013' printed on boots worn during infamous Europa League celebration Europa League winner Benitez delivered Schalke blow as Germans snub interim boss
