On Sunday, a little before four o’clock, José Mourinho will leave the tunnel at Old Trafford and walk along the front of the South Stand.
He’ll see ahead of him the touchline along which he sprinted and slid in 2004 after his
Porto side had beaten Manchester United in the Champions League with a late goal. And, before the halfway line, he’ll turn right, and take his place in the away dug-out. Given he’s not a man who seems particularly to regret, he may not even cast a glance to the bench 15 yards in front of him and wonder what might have been, but there’s another reality, not that far removed from this one, in which he would have been sitting in the home dug-out.