AS Andre Villas-Boas prepares to confirm his appointment as Chelsea's new manager, he will spare a thought for the late Sir Bobby Robson. It was the former England boss who bent the FA's rulebook to set the Portuguese youngster on the road to stardom.
Villas-Boas, now 33, was just 16 years old when he first crossed paths with Sir Bobby.
BIG HEART ... Robson
Football fanatic Andre would frequently engage the veteran boss in conversation, discussing team selections and tactics when they met in the corridors. Robson was so impressed by the young man who had an impeccable grasp of English that, incredibly, he recruited the teenage Villas-Boas to his Porto scouting staff.
Villas-Boas revealed: "Mr Robson liked my passion, so he helped me to enrol at Lilleshall to take my FA coaching qualifications.
"I started very young. In fact, I shouldn't really have been there because the law doesn't allow a minor to take coaching qualifications.
"But Bobby smoothed the way with Charles Hughes, the head of the Centre of Excellence, and I was allowed in to take my UEFA C badges. I was the youngest coach there by a mile but I was so determined to make it. I spent three weeks at each venue in the UK, went to the Scottish academy at Largs and Bobby also arranged for me to study George Burley's methods at Ipswich."
At the age of 21, Villas-Boas was appointed technical director of football by the British Virgin Islands, in charge of their qualifying campaign for the 2002 World Cup despite never having played at senior level.
A year later, he returned to Porto as youth coach, where he came across Jose Mourinho.
Villas-Boas, whose grandmother Margaret Kendall came from Cheadle in Cheshire, bridles at suggestions he is the Mini-Me clone to Mourinho's Doctor Evil.
Yet it is impossible to ignore the parallels with the Special One, who also first came to prominence under Robson's tutelage.
Villas-Boas' official title, first at Porto and later at Chelsea, was assistant scout. But Mourinho described him as "my eyes and ears".
Part of his job was to travel incognito to the training grounds of Chelsea's opponents and compile dossiers on the mental and physical state of their players.
Ahead of each game, the Chelsea players were handed personalised DVDs by Villas-Boas pinpointing the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition. It was such incredible attention to detail which laid the foundations for Chelsea's remarkable success under Mourinho's leadership.
When the Special One fell out with Roman Abramovich, Villas-Boas followed him to Inter Milan before branching out on his own to become manager of small-time Portuguese club Academica de Coimbra in 2009.
He was only in charge there for 30 games but dragged the team off the foot of the Primeira Liga to mid-table safety as well as to the semi-finals of the Portuguese League Cup.
His achievements at Coimbra did not go unnoticed and in June last year, like Robson and Mourinho before him, he was appointed coach of Porto.
In his one season in charge, Villas-Boas led Porto to FOUR trophies, culminating in him becoming the youngest manager to win a European title when he lifted the Europa League trophy last month. Along the way, Porto went 36 games unbeaten, managing 16 league wins in a row, and won the Portuguese league by a record 21 points.
No wonder Porto president Pinto da Costa put a £13million release clause in his coach's contract, knowing one of football's super-powers would come knocking.
Now Chelsea are set to trigger that release, offering Villas-Boas a £4.5m-a-year contract and access to an unlimited transfer fund.
Married to Joana with two daughters, he will take the return to London in his stride and is already looking forward to being reunited with John Terry, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba and Chelsea's other superstars.
As Villas-Boas admits: "I would have loved to have played at the highest level but I wasn't good enough, so I turned to coaching."-The sun
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