It was more than 20 years ago that the world was introduced to “the special one”, an intense, oddball football manager whose charisma managed to easily overshadow even the star players on his teams.

In 2004, Jose Mourinho was the perfect choice for Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea experiment. This was a time when the idea of a rakish billionaire taking over a football club was still a novelty.

Amid all the buzz, the world waited to see what Mourinho would do with this pampered team. He had, after all, already done the impossible, turning the Portuguese club FC Porto, a minnow in an ocean of sharks, into European champions. In the glitzy, drowning-in-money world of Chelsea in those days, when he declared himself “the special one”, there was an element of humour and drama to it, but also something resembling the truth.

Decades later, having given football-lovers the pleasure of a nonstop media spectacle, steered teams to great wins and been written off as a melodramatic has-been over and over, Mourinho is still at the top, doing things that can only be described as “special”.

More than the optics and the theatre, the truth about him is that he is a survivor.

Barcelona found that out the hard way in the El Clasico last week, when their massive lead over Real Madrid in La Liga was cut to just three points after an inspired win that had the Mourinho stamp all over it.

This was the manager doing what he does best. In his second stint at the vaunted Spanish club, in his 13th match, marking his re-entry into the big leagues, the grizzled Portuguese shook things up. He placed a teenager (Yan Diomande) at centrestage, brought back a player (Eduardo Camavinga) who had been out of favour since last season, and bravely toyed with Barcelona’s usual ball-domination tactics.

It has been a long road back to the top for Mourinho.

There were the heady days of 2010 when he won the treble with Inter Milan. The dazzling brilliance of Real Madrid’s 2011-12 season. He led that team to a league win after a gap of four years, earning himself the nickname Galactico, a tag usually reserved for players. Then there was the stormy, bitter exit from the club, a return to Chelsea, and a triumphant league victory, followed quickly by another exit.

Manchester United came calling next. A combative Mourinho fought with press, fans and players through the three years he spent at that blighted club. An even more forgettable spell and a sacking at Tottenham Hotspur brought the journeyman to AS Roma, where he showed that he still had the old spark, as he took the struggling Italian club to its first major trophy in more than a decade.

When that stint ended, Mourinho seemed truly lost. He struggled dramatically in a short stint with the Turkish Super Lig club Fenerbahce, then returned home with Benfica, but was luckless there.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, he was at the helm of the biggest football club in the world again.

He is older, perhaps a bit less fractious, now 63 and sporting a white beard. But still as wily and as confident; still a genius and a comic-book villain rolled into one. Above all, still a survivor.