On the eve of Roma’s meeting with Real Madrid at the Olimpico, a mural recalling José Mourinho’s Roman chapter has already become part of the city’s changing football memory. Painted only two days earlier near the stadium, the work was damaged overnight, with Mourinho’s face covered in black paint while the child alongside him was left untouched.
A tribute altered before match night
- Artist Drugi, the name used by Lorenzo Verricchia, created the mural a short distance from the Olimpico, where Roma were due to face Real Madrid that evening.
- The image showed Mourinho beside a young Roma supporter holding the Europa Conference League trophy won in 2022, the first European silverware claimed by the club in more than six decades.
- Drugi had described the work as a remembrance of a shared journey to the top of Europe, adding that one night could set aside affection but could not erase what had been.
- He later said that the trophy had been a major source of pride for Roma and that Mourinho was the man who delivered it, making the pairing of coach and cup a natural one.
- During the following night, unknown vandals blacked out the former Roma coach’s face. The figure of the child and the Conference League remained undamaged.
Mourinho remains a subject in Roma’s street art
This is not the first time an artistic tribute to Mourinho has been targeted. Years earlier, a well-known mural by Harry Greb, portraying the Portuguese coach riding a Vespa, was also vandalised.
As Drugi’s new work was being defaced, Harry Greb unveiled another Roma-themed piece at the Roma Club Testaccio. Titled I Mister (Roma chiamò), it traces Mourinho’s place in the club’s recent history through a sequence of images.
The mural includes the old Vespa associated with Mourinho, then a version of the coach marked by his Real Madrid past taking his place on the Roma bench. Gian Piero Gasperini then appears to usher him away with a smile, placing the former coach’s European triumph alongside the club’s next managerial phase.
For Roma, the episode leaves a familiar contradiction around Mourinho’s legacy: the Conference League victory of 2022 remains a point of collective pride, while the images attached to that period continue to be revised, contested and defended beyond the pitch.
