Mourinho, King of Coaching

Recent hatrick achievement with Inter Milan, put Jose Mourinho in the club of legendary coaches. When you watch Inter, you can see clearly the touches of a great coach. Mourinho coaching style and his sharp words made him a very provocative character and a good story for the media.



Now Mourinho has signed for Real Madrid, this will add a lot of joy to the typical Real Madrid / Barcelona race. In this post, I introduce to you Mourinho, but in a form of quotes, things he said or said about him. I collected them from World Soccer Magazine, Champions Magazine, a small book about him, and recent talk in the media.

I hope you enjoy these quotes as they reveal many parts of Mourinho character and style.

Born as a coach:
"I was the owner of the ball, because my father would give the best to play with. So, it's my ball, I choose the team, I decide where I want to play, how long the game lasts, and we only finish playing when my team are winning. It's true! Everybody used to wait for me to come out, they'd e ringing my doorbell, because without me they played with a plastic ball. With me, it was an Adidas Tango World Cup ball. I was the manager and I was the president. If my friends read this interview they will laugh, because it's true." (Mourinho)

"On Birthdays and at Christmas, he would always ask me for various things, but if he didn't get a ball, it was as if he hadn't been given anything" (Mourinho mother)

"We coaches are born with something. I remember as a kid, around 10 or 12 speaking to my father or watching and talking about a game - not as a crazy football kid, but as a coach. Of course, step by step with experience you do it better and better. We coaches small the game, we read it and feel it." (Mourinho)


Mourinho as a translator in Barca to Bobby Robson:
"If I was upset with any player or needed to get a point over strongly, Jose would not pull any of my punches. There's always a temptation for the interpreter to do that, but Jose was very assertive" (Bobby Robson)

"I speak a bit of English so in the dressing room I knew that Mourinho's translations weren't literal. It was Robson, plus Mourinho's own observations, and they made sense" (Oscar Garcia, former Barca player)



Rude and Arroganct or frank and confident?
"I was in Barcelona with Lousi Van Gaal, who had nine Dutch players. I didn't want that. It's like a young boy who goes in holiday with his parents all the times because he is afraid to go by his own" (Mourinho, on his transfer policy, 2004)

"Please don't call me arrogant, but I am a European champion and I think I am a special one"
" We have top players, and sorry if I am arrogant, we have a top manager"
(Mourinho after winning 2004 Champion League with Porto)

"I am surprised to see that Mr. Ranieri so popular, but without a trophy in four years"
(Mourinho on Ranieri who coached Chelsea before him for four years)

"We are on top at teh moment, but not because of the club financial power. We are in contention for a lot of trophies because of my hard work" (Mourinho, 2005)

"When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid, not more intelligent"
(Arsene Wenger, 2005, after long ping-pong media fight between both coaches)

"Arsene has shown difficulty understanding his life has changed. He is trying to defelct the truth about the rise of Chelsea" (Mourinho replying, 2005)

"It's like two peacocks strutting their stuff, showing their fathers" (Ian Wright on both managers)



Mourinho as a coach:
"A coach must be everything: a tactician, motivator, leader, methodologist, psychologist. A teacher at university told me "a coach that knows only about football is not a top one. Every coach knows about football, the difference is made in the other areas". He was a teacher of philosophy. I got the message." (Mourinho)

"My scouts take a really long time because they prepare audio-visual and computer work, and I study their work to prepare my team in training. This is the real work, the work on the pitch. After that we have three meetings with the players to go through every detail, but the most important thing is a game plan. It's crucial to anticipate the game on the training ground. I want my players to be comfortable on the pitch, and only work can give them that comfort". (Mourinho)

"I need top personalities to work with. I put a lot of pressure on my players. A top personality becomes a super-player. A soft, fragile personality can be smashed." (Mourinho)

"English football has the intensity other countries don't. Italy have all the tactics, although English football is no longer at zero when it comes to tactics. Spanish football has the talent, technical ability and skill, plus intensity can be high with the ball. And right now, intensity is what makes the difference; it's what football is all about." (Mourinho)

 "there is no coach like him when it comes to sticking his neck and defending everyone, that way reducing the tension within the team when things aren't going well. It's no fluke that after a defeat, Inter gets straight back on its feet. That's all thanks to Mourinho" (Milito)

"Remember in football, for 90 minutes, you have no old friends" (Mourinho)

I like England, I don't like Italy:
"Mourinho likes nothing about Italy" (Alessandro Altobelli, former Inter legend)

"Yes, I love English football and the idea to go back and live in England."  (Mourinho, 2010)

"I think the best place to work in football is England" (Mourinho, 2004)

"After that (end of contract with Inter) who knows what will happen. I could stay here, I could go to Japan, I could go to Riyadh, I could go anywhere and may be I would not return to England immediately. However, one day, I will go back to England, that's 100% certain, I just don't know when" (Mourinho, early 2010)

"In just one year, everything in London has become so familiar to me. That and the fact that my family and I were received with open arms means I've always felt like a Londoner from day one" (Mourinho, 2005)

"I don't like Italian football but I respect it" (Mourinho, 2010, after first leg of Inter-Barca semi-final)

"Everyone knows that I have never felt at home in this country, but I don’t have time to think about that" (Mourinho, 2010)

Defending tactics
And the best quote I found is criticizing Tottenham defending tactics in September, 2004
"THEY DIDN'T PLAY FOOTBALL, THEY JUST DEFENDED, DEFENDED, DEFENDED. AS WE SAY IN PORTUGAL, THEY BROUGHT THE BUS AND THEY LEFT THE BUS IN FRONT OF THE GOAL" It was the exact same tactic that Mourinho used vs. Barcelona this year. Though I don't like this tactic, but I respect it when it works.

"He has more belief in defence than attack. My philosophy is always to have attacking play. His philosophy is to win" (Van Gaal in 2004) wow, this quote is like it was said last week

"Mourinho makes his team play defensive all the time. I have no joy watching Chelsea. It is a shame because I like English Football" (Johan Cruyff, 2005)

I cannot say I like Mourinho, but I respect him a lot, and he would be a coach any fan would wish for his team.