Nostalgia is usually good for you. Remembering the past fondly, even a past you never experienced, is fun and therapeutic. But it's not without risk. It can lead apparently reasonable people to yearn for things that were crap the first time round, such as apartheid South Africa, or Stone Age brain surgery techniques, or Milli Vanilli.

This week, nostalgia prompted Roman Abramovich to head-hunt Andre Villas-Boas, in a clear attempt to recover his salad days of the mid-noughties, when Chelsea's potentate and a hot-shot Portuguese coach turned English football upside down. With the original Jose Mourinho occupied and a tad diminished, Abramovich has gambled heavily on Mourinho Lite.

Some believe he's Mourinho Heavy. The meticulous Villas-Boas is a bolder tactician than his compatriot, and may well emulate the results of his former boss with Barcelona-Lite football. It could be a forward-looking appointment as well as a backward-looking one. According to Olivier Dacourt, who worked with both men at Inter Milan, Villas-Boas is "more human" than Mourinho, which sounds great.

Carlo Ancelotti is surely more human than either of them. It still seems wrong that the dignified, decent Italian and his left eyebrow were sacked a mere 12 months after guiding the Blues to the double.

Nostalgia played a role in Irvin Khoza's appointment of Julio Leal as Orlando Pirates coach this week, in place of the all-conquering Ruud Krol. The Bucs boss wants "a change of culture" at the club; a modern revival of the swashbuckling charisma of the Sea Robbers of the Seventies, when Jomo Sono dazzled Orlando stadium.

The laconic Krol will feign indifference, but he must have been surprised at not being asked to stay on, having just coached an underachieving team to a domestic treble.

It was a strange exit, especially given that Khoza had defied local football's culture of impatience by keeping Krol for a PSL eternity of three consecutive seasons.

It recalled the dumping of Vicente del Bosque by Real Madrid president Florentino Perez in 2003, just weeks after victory in La Liga, and just a year after winning the Champions League.

Del Bosque was deemed too old and too dull to take Los Merengues to the heights their nostalgic bosses, raised on the exploits of Alfredo Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas, demanded.

Like Real, the Bucs have a sepia-toned myth to maintain: for many Pirates fans, artistry is at least as important as victory.

And, despite his paranormal naartjie-hued shirt, Krol is no artist: his success with Pirates was built on a stodgy foundation of consistent selection and shape, disciplined defence and the little favours that Lady Luck tends to bestow on hard-working teams.

Enter Leal, a charismatic Brazilian who seems to understand the peculiar spirit of South African football more than most foreign coaches. But that affinity won't necessarily translate into silverware. The Ghost shouldn't be surprised, a couple of years down the track, to find themselves looking back on the Krol era with a pang of sweet nostalgia.