Even when he's not there, he's there.
The invasion of Lisbon by half of Madrid may have had little to do with the great Portuguese protagonist himself, but somehow it did not feel as if the Special One was very far away.
The Real Madrid press conference on the eve of the Champions League Final never mentioned Jose Mourinho by name, but the elephant was most definitely in the room.
“It's very close the line between obsession and a dream, but my thought is a dream – we try to reach the dream” said Carlo Ancelotti in a pointed reference to Mourinho's insistence that Chelsea did not have the same level of desperation about winning the trophy as other clubs like Real.
Not an obsession? Mourinho was kidding no-one with that one and neither was Ancelotti. Both men have the competition in the blood - Junkies mainlining on that annual chase for the ultimate club prize, even if their demeanour differs markedly.
Ancelotti, that left eyebrow as raised as ever, denied he was feeling especially tense, but admitted there was a dead-eyed intensity ahead of the fray.
“Am I tense? No, I'm focused because in a major match I'm really quite calm. You don't have to work hard to motivate the players.”
He is never going to admit it, but it must have been galling for Mourinho to watch proceedings from afar, knowing he had come so close to reaching the final with the Blancos – only for his successor to succeed at the first attempt.
Three times in a row Mourinho pulled up lame in the semi-final and once more this season with Chelsea. Ancelotti, twice a winner as a player and twice as a manager, got there at the first time of asking at the Bernabeu. And in Mourinho's homeland too.
And what must Roman Abramovich have been thinking if he opted to park the yacht for the evening to tune in? Did he ditch Chelsea's double-winning Italian manager a mite too soon?
By lifting the trophy with Real – the legendary club's Decima, or 10th title – Ancelotti joined Liverpool's Bob Paisley as the only other three-times winner of Europe's major club prize.
How Mourinho must have been quietly hoping Real would fail. But that special bit of Madrid history was Ancelotti's.
The Italian's team were seconds from defeat against Atletico Madrid but following a Sergio Ramos equaliser three minutes into injury time, Real strode away to a clinical 4-1 win in extra-time.
It was supposed to be a moment reserved for Mourinho. The post-match bumps were Carlo's.
Of course the Blues' boss came mightily close to guiding Chelsea to an encounter with Ancelotti in Lisbon, and you can bet your life, he'll be redoubling his efforts to make up for it next year.
He may call it a dream rather than an obsession, but as Ancelotti would say, if there is a big difference between the two as far as the Portuguese is concerned, you would hardly notice.