Jose
Mourinho
José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix
was born January 26, 1963 in Setúbal, Portugal and is a successful
football manager.
Early years
Son of Portuguese goalkeeper Félix Mourinho, José
Mourinho never pursued a career as a player (although he did have
minor stints in smaller clubs) but showed an impressive managing
ability from an early age, by preparing match reports for his father.
The Translator
Nicknamed
Tradutor (translator), as he worked with Bobby Robson as a translator
(technically speaking he was interpreter) in FC Porto, and followed
him to FC Barcelona where he even learned Catalan. When Robson left
for PSV, he stayed in the Catalan side where he worked with Dutch
coach Louis Van Gaal.
Benfica and Leiria
In 2000 his chance of coaching a team finally arrived, when he was
picked by Lisbon side Benfica to replace Jupp Heynckes after the
fourth week of the Portuguese league. In nine matches he won five,
having the same draws and losses (two). However, while he was popular,
especially after a 3-0 win against Sporting, Benfica's election
turned against the president João Vale e Azevedo and the
newly-elected Manuel Vilarinho already had talks with another manager,
who replaced him only a few weeks later. While it's uncertain if
Mourinho pulled himself out of Benfica or he was really pushed out,
it's considered to be one of the biggest mistakes in recent Benfica
administration.
The next season (01-02) he started in mid-tablers União de
Leiria, where he climbed as high as fourth (9-7-3 WDL record), when
he was selected by FC Porto's president Pinto da Costa to replace
Octávio Machado as a manager of a lowly-motivated side already
running outside the title dispute by week 19 and in risk of not
playing in European competitions. He picked the Porto side with
promises of "making Porto champion next year", and clinched
the third place after a good 15 game run (WDL 11-2-2).
Porto
magic
After
asking several players to create what he believed would be a perfect
team (such as Maniche, Paulo Ferreira, Nuno Valente and Derlei),
he combined the already existing talents (Baía, Ricardo Carvalho,
Jorge Costa, Costinha, Deco, Dmitri Alenitchev and Postiga) to create
one of the most powerful teams ever seen in Portuguese football.
He won the first Superliga he fully coached with a 27-5-2 WDL record,
11 points clear of the side that ditched him two years before, Benfica.
He also won the Portuguese Cup (against former club Leiria) and
the UEFA Cup, managing to get one impressive treble.
This debut season proved hard to beat, but the following season,
while not playing as impressively, gave Porto an easy championship
win (the 20th) with an eight point advantage, and an unbeaten run
that only ended five weeks before the end of the league. While the
cup was lost to Benfica, two weeks later he won the Champions League
after a run of only one defeat against Real Madrid in the first
phase.
Chelsea
Still in Porto, he was linked with Roman Abramovich's Chelsea, and
many questioned the legality of the contacts, since they reportedly
started when both teams were in the Champions League semifinals.
Mourinho already gave impressions of wanting to leave after the
end of the season, and after winning the Champions League, Porto
started official talks with Chelsea. He was transferred (a rare
thing for a manager) and became one of the highest earning managers
in the world.
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