Abramovich's silent and swift coup brings Scolari to Chelsea

(GETTY IMAGES)

As he sat in a restaurant by the lakeside in Geneva yesterday, Czech supporters drinking at the tables around him oblivious to the Russian billionaire among them, Roman Abramovich knew that the hard work of the summer was already done. He had appointed Luiz Felipe Scolari as his fourth Chelsea manager and this one – the timing of it especially – was to be the biggest shock of the tournament so far.

As far as drama went, it was comparable to John Terry slipping over as he stepped up to take the winning penalty in a Champions League final, a coup that a club as leaky and prone to factionalism as Chelsea must have thought they could never pull off. After his team beat the Czech Republic, Scolari attended his post-match press conference at the Stade de Geneve as normal, he answered questions on Deco, he spoke about the spirit of his team and he pulled those funny expressions that are his trademark when the translation in his earphones became too difficult to follow. What he failed to mention was that he had just been made the new manager of Chelsea.

That news broke later, barely an hour after full-time, as Scolari was leaving the stadium. Earlier in the day the Brazilian had left notes in each of his Portugal players' rooms telling them that after almost six years in charge of the national team he would be leaving to join Chelsea and he added how much he had enjoyed being their coach. The club claim that Scolari was entirely happy with the timing of the announcement that came just as Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal had started to look like a team who were capable of winning Euro 2008.

Watching from the stands with Frank Arnesen, Chelsea's chief scout, and Piet de Visser – the veteran former Dutch coach who is regarded as Abramovich's personal adviser on football – the Chelsea owner witnessed a performance from Scolari that was typical of the man. He was prowling the edge of his technical area for most of the match, he celebrated the goals Portugal scored by throwing his arms around his players. At one point it looked like he might even run onto the pitch to tackle Milan Baros as the Czech striker broke through. In short he was passionate, involved and victorious – all the qualities that Chelsea require in a manager.

In so many respects, Scolari fits the blueprint perfectly for the kind of man Abramovich wants. He is a World Cup winner, a man who takes no nonsense from anyone and who has made a habit of humiliating the England team on a regular basis. With Brazil he knocked England out the 2002 World Cup and his Portugal teams beat Sven Goran Eriksson's teams at Euro 2004 and in the 2006 World Cup. He turned down the Football Association before that last tournament when they thought they had an agreement to make him England manager. In short, many regard him as managerial gold.

And yet. The questions over Scolari, the doubts that said he was never likely to make a suitable Chelsea manager are as real now as they were when he turned down the England job two years ago. He is not regarded as the greatest tactical brain in European football: in fact the Portuguese regard him as a man who plays more upon the heart of his players than their brains. He places a great deal of importance on the espirit de corps, on the strength of the group and loves the short-term impact that he can have on a group of international players over the course of a tournament.

Can he sustain that over a season in the full glare of publicity that accompanies the manager's job at Chelsea? Managing in the Premier League, enthusiasm and force of character will get him only so far. As Jose Mourinho proved, there is a science to breaking Manchester United's stranglehold over English football and it is hard-won. At 59, Scolari has not been in club management for seven years.

And furthermore, how will he stand up to the scrutiny of his family that has to be born by every public figure in British life? This is a man who still walks on the beach every morning near his home in the coastal resort of Cascais outside Lisbon. In Neuchatel, the picturesque Swiss town that has been home to the Portugal squad for this tournament, he attends mass and goes swimming in the lake. It is not the simple life that he will find in west London or the leafy stockbroker suburbs around Chelsea's training ground in Cobham in Surrey.

Scolari was so brittle in the face of the press interest when he had provisionally accepted the job as England manager that it was thought to be a factor in his subsequent rejection of the FA. Scolari - "Big Phil" to those who know him best - regards himself as an honest, straight-talking Brazilian from the south of the country, Porto Alegre to be precise. It is the same region that produced Ronaldinho. He last managed a club in 2001 when he was in charge of Cruzeiro and before his stunning victory in the 2002 World Cup he was generally regarded as a dour, defensive coach out of kilter with the more joyful approach to football in his native Brazil.

Nevertheless he has had his successes. He won the Copa Libertadores - South America's equivalent of the Champions League – with Gremio and then Palmeiras in 1999. He subsequently lost the world club championship to Manchester United. Bizarrely he also had a stint in charge of the Kuwait national team and he says that he has never been afraid to travel to get work but then he has never been paid quite as much as the £6m that Chelsea are understood to be paying him.

A devout Catholic, he prays to Our Lady of Fatima every day and also has a fondness for the saint the Brazilians call Nossa Senhora Caravagio. He keeps images of those two in his pocket during games. But it is likely to be an altogether more earthly reason that made up Scolari's mind when he decided that Abramovich's offer was simply too good to turn down.

Money. It is what drags everyone into Chelsea in the end. Abramovich has promised Scolari an annual salary which would take him about five years to earn from the much less wealthy Portuguese football federation. He is understood to earn a relatively modest €1.5m for his job as Portugal manager but supplements that handsomely with earnings from endorsements such as Nike and a major Portuguese bank. He also travels extensively for speaking engagements. As an international manager beloved of the Portuguese people he has the time to do so. As manager of Chelsea, his every waking moment will be suffused with delivering Abramovich's dream of the Champions League. And he will be expected to win it more than once.

He has never seen eye to eye with Mourinho since he failed to select a number of Porto players for the Euro 2004 squad but the two are thought to be on better terms than they were a few years ago. No doubt Scolari would be interested to hear the Portuguese coach's version of life at Chelsea but he will be too proud to ask. The two men do have one thing in common however: neither of them amounted to anything as footballers. Scolari was an unremarkable central defender for the team Maceio in Brazil but quickly moved into coaching.

Scolari will need to do all things that Abramovich has required of his three previous managers: success, attacking football and the ability to get along with a Russian billionaire who does not like to be denied anything. The Brazilian once summed up his philosophy thus: "I've battled for everything in my career as a player and a coach. I evoke discipline and also enthusiasm. If I can get that through to the players, we'll start to win." At Chelsea, it is likely to be a good deal more complicated than that.