2024-10-04 12:58:40
Some consider him a vile creature “polluting” football, for others he is an idol, a “machine” that realizes championship dreams. You can love or not love him, curse him for sudden and drastic decisions or be surprised at his ingenuity… However, he has not lost his uniqueness from the statements of the football world that are neither critical nor glorifying…
The hero of the first edition of AllSport.am’s “Face of the Week” title is Jose Mourinho, the head coach of “Real Madrid”. You will present the material in three parts.
The beginning of the coaching path at the age of 16.
Jose Mourinho was born on January 26, 1963 in Setúbal, Portugal. By the age of 16, Jose played in the Portuguese amateur league, and after that, his coaching path was gradually drawn. Mourinho’s father, Felix Mourinho, who was the head coach of the Vitoria team (and once defended the goal of the Portuguese national team) made his 16-year-old son one of his assistants. Jose traveled around Portuguese cities with Vitoria, got to know the latter’s competitors and from that time wrote down everything that could be useful on the way to the top.
After graduating from the Portuguese Sports Institute at the age of 23, Mourinho traveled to Scotland to qualify as a professional coach. In Scotland, Jose gets to know a number of famous coaches, which naturally helps him raise his coaching level…
A translator who would become Bobby Robson’s first assistant and confidante.
Returning to Portugal, Mourinho worked for 4 seasons in the youth team of “Benfica”. In 1994, Sir Bobby Robson, whom Jose had met in Scotland, was appointed as the head coach of “Porto”. The early acquaintance paid off: Robson invited Mourinho to “Porto”. At first, Jose was just a translator, and after a while, an assistant coach. When Bobby Robson led the Catalan “Barcelona” in 1997, he took Jose Mourinho with him to Spain. But after losing to Real Madrid in the last round of the league and losing top spot, Robson was sacked, with Louis Van Gaal in charge, another prominent figure in Jose’s coaching career.
Jose ends up rejecting Robson.
Bobby Robson didn’t forget Mourinho, and when he was in charge of Newcastle, he again invited the Portuguese to work with him. But Mourinho refused this time…he already wanted to work on his own, have an assistant and not be in that position.
“I learned a lot from Bobby Robson. During training, he paid a lot of attention to the emotional side, several times he left me to conduct training on my own,” Mourinho later noted.
“My biggest mistake was sacking Mourinho.”
In 2000, Jose Mourinho was invited to lead Benfica, but he worked here for only 4 months. The reason was the unfriendly relationship with the president of the club, Luis Felipe Vieira. Mourinho wanted to establish his position in the team and called on the club’s management not to interfere in his decisions, and Vieira could not accept all that. Mourinho left the modest “Leiría”, which he brought from the last positions to the 5th place in one season, and Luis Felipe Vieira later had to admit. “Firing Mourinho was my biggest mistake…”
Last stop before going special.
In 2001, Mourinho signed a three-year contract with the management of Porto. In the new team, Jose won the Portuguese Championship twice, the Europa League, and became the youngest coach in the history of football to win the Champions League Cup. Just three days after beating Monaco 3-0 in the 2004 Champions League final, Roman Abramovich invited him to Chelsea…
The “I’m special one” story started from London.
To be continued…