When José Mourinho was named coach of Inter Milan I received a text from one of his new players. “Boy, this is going to be fun!” he wrote. “I can’t wait to see who he picks a fight with first . . . You guys will have plenty to write about.”

Predictably, we did not have to wait long. After trading a few initial barbs with Claudio Ranieri, the Juventus coach and Mourinho’s predecessor at Chelsea (“How old is he anyway? Seventy? No wonder his football is so antiquated.”), the Special One found his first true free-for-all. To be fair to Mourinho though, in this case he cannot be accused of picking the fight. Rather, he cemented his reputation as a man who will not do what most mothers (including, presumably, his) teach their children: “If they say something nasty about you, just ignore them.”

It began nine days ago, when Inter beat Catania 2-1. As victories went it was unimpressive – Inter needed two own goals, although they did play with ten men for more than a half – but, typically, Mourinho saw things differently. “We could have won that game 5-1 easily,” he said. “In fact, I could have played in goal for Inter and we still would have won.”

For those familiar with Mourinho, the mild hyperbole would have been innocuous. But Pietro Lo Monaco, the Catania chief executive, felt deeply insulted. “Somebody who says such things has no respect for anyone, neither for his opponents nor for the country in which he is a guest,” Lo Monaco said. “Mourinho is, plain and simple, the kind of guy who deserves a smack in the mouth [in literal terms he said: ‘a guy who should get smashed in the teeth with a club’].”

Not the most elegant riposte, although Lo Monaco did temper his comments shortly after, specifying that he was not inciting violence against Mourinho, but rather that he was using a “typical Sicilian expression”. I had never heard that expression (but then I am not Sicilian). Evidently, neither had Massimo Moratti, the Inter president, who labelled Lo Monaco’s comments as “uncivilised”. That led to Catania lodging a complaint with the Italian FA, demanding that Moratti be sanctioned for insulting the club. Meanwhile, Mourinho had prepared his own reply. “Lo Monaco?” he said, quizzically. “I don’t know him. I know of Tibetan monks [monaco means “monk” in Italian], I know Bayern Munich [Bayern Monaco in Italian], I know the Monaco Grand Prix . . . I don’t know any others.”

Turning serious, he added: “If this guy wants to earn free publicity by talking about me, he’d better pay me. Adidas features me in their adverts, but they pay me a lot of money to do that. I don’t get paid to help this Lo Monaco get in the papers.”

The whole diatribe was, at the very least, entertaining, certainly more so than Inter’s performances this season. And further proof – not that we needed any – that Mourinho makes headlines wherever he goes.

In an interview published on Saturday, he fired the final dart at Lo Monaco. “I don’t go around provoking people,” he said. “But if someone has a go at me, I won’t turn the other cheek. And I know that I’m a guy who sells papers and attracts attention. Look at this Lo Monaco. Thanks to me, everybody now knows who he is. He even got on CNN, and he did it for free. It’s a fantastic result for him, isn’t it?”

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame. But if that is what you want to do, getting into a war of words with Mourinho is perhaps the most efficient way to do it.

And another thing...

Bayern conceding five at home gives hope to us all

With 20 minutes to play on Saturday, Bayern Munich were 5-0 down at home. No, that is not a misprint. Bayern, the Bundesliga champions, the club whose financial might is almost as great as the rest of the league combined, the club who cherrypick the best and brightest from the competition, had conceded five goals at home against Werder Bremen, who, four days earlier, had been held to a scoreless home draw by a team from Cyprus. Bayern scored two late goals, but the 5-2 home thumping smarts.

You have to love football’s ability to throw up such scores. Strip away the hype and it is 22 men in shorts and boots playing with a round ball.

And you have to love Franz Beckenbauer, the Bayern president, for his reaction. “I would advise Jürgen Klinsmann [the head coach] to go down to Oktoberfest and drink a few litres of beer,” he said. “The players may want to drink even more, so they can forget this day.”

Champions League magic

When it comes to throwing up unlikely heroes, the Champions League is becoming more and more like the FA Cup. Take the case of Juan Culio, the CFR Cluj midfield player. Five years ago he was working as a builder. Two years ago he was playing reserve-team football in Argentina, making a grand total of zero starts over two seasons.

Before this season he had scored three goals in his entire career. On Wednesday he scored two beautiful goals for Cluj at the Olympic Stadium in Rome, condemning Roma to an historic Champions League defeat at the hands of the Romanian minnows. Yes, dreams do come true.