GLANCE FACTS
• The four managers with the best win percentage in Premier League history (having managed more than 50 games) are Jose Mourinho 71%, Sir Alex Ferguson 65%, Carlo Ancelotti 63% and Roberto Mancini 62%
• Mancini is the third manager to win both the Serie A and Premier League titles (along with Mourinho and Ancelotti)
• Mourinho's Chelsea team of 2004-05 still hold the record for the fewest goals conceded in a 38-game top flight campaign (15)
Champions League: Mourinho and Mancini renew acquaintances
Roberto Mancini has done his best to play it all down. "This game is not Mourinho-Mancini or Mancini-Mourinho. This game is Real Madrid-Manchester City," was his response to a recent question.
And yet in a Champions League tie filled with sub-plots and side stories, there is a fascination in seeing Europe's two most highly paid managers pit their wits against each other at the Bernabeu.
They have met as managers only once before when Mancini's Lazio played Porto nine years ago in the Uefa Cup. Jose Mourinho came out on top on that occasion - despite a touchline ban for the second leg - to lead his team to his first European trophy.
They have not met since that match in 2003 and yet there is a sense that a rivalry and tension has developed even without direct confrontations. Despite that, their respect for each other is without question.
"Jose is one of the best in the world," Manchester City boss Mancini said of his Real Madrid rival.
"But people should forget the managers. It's the players who will decide the game. What happens outside the pitch is not important."
The parallels between both men are clear to see, right down to their tailored coats and penchant for distinctive scarves. Both have turned ambitious and extremely wealthy English football clubs into title winners and both led Inter to the coveted Serie A scudetto.
And yet when you look more closely, there are also notable differences. Lots of them.
As a player, Mourinho was a relative pauper, lacking the ability to follow in his father's footsteps and turn professional. Mancini was the prince, an outlandish talent, a cavalier and a character during a glittering career with Sampdoria, Lazio and Italy that led his adoring fans and compatriots to claim he was "baciato dalla grazia" or "kissed by good fortune".
It is Mourinho, however, who has had the upper hand in the managerial stakes, having won two Champions Leagues - with Porto in 2004 and Inter in 2010 - and league titles in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain, all carried off with an aura reminiscent of the greats of the past.
But if Mourinho and Real represent the pinnacle of the game, established football royalty, Mancini and City are the upstarts, the nouveau riche who believe they can overthrow the established order.
