He is regarded by a number of players, coaches, and commentators as one of the greatest and most successful managers in the world.[2][3][4] Mourinho began his involvement in professional football as a player in the Portuguese Second Division. He studied sports science in Technical University of Lisbon and attended coaching courses in Britain. In Lisbon, he worked as a physical education teacher and had spells working as a youth team coach, a scout, and an assistant manager. In the early 1990s, he became an interpreter for Sir Bobby Robson at Sporting CP and Porto in Portugal, and Barcelona in Spain. He remained at the Catalonian club working with Robson's successor Louis van Gaal.
Mourinho impressed with brief but successful managerial periods at Benfica and União de Leiria, taking the latter to their highest ever league finish. He returned to Porto in early 2002 as head coach, winning the Primeira Liga, Taça de Portugal, and UEFA Cup in 2003. In the next season, Mourinho guided the team to victory in the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira, to the top of the league for a second time, and won the highest honour in European club football, the UEFA Champions League. Mourinho moved to Chelsea the following year and won the Premier League title with a record 95 points, the club's first league title in 50 years, and the League Cup in his first season. In his second year, Chelsea retained the Premier League and in 2006–07 he took the club to an FA Cup and League Cup double. Mourinho left Chelsea in September 2007, amidst reports of a rift with club owner Roman Abramovich.[5]
In 2008, Mourinho moved to Serie A club Internazionale. Within three months he had won his first Italian honour, the Supercoppa Italiana, and completed the season by winning the Serie A title. In 2009–10, Inter became the first Italian club to win the treble of Serie A, Coppa Italia and the UEFA Champions League, also the first time Inter had won the latter competition since 1965. Beside Ernst Happel, Ottmar Hitzfeld, Jupp Heynckes and Carlo Ancelotti, Mourinho is one of only five coaches to have won the European Cup with two different teams.[6] He won the first ever FIFA Ballon d'Or Best Coach Award in 2010. He then signed with Real Madrid in 2010, winning the Copa del Rey in his first season. The following year, he won the La Liga and became the fifth coach, after Tomislav Ivić, Ernst Happel, Giovanni Trapattoni and Eric Gerets, to have won league titles in at least four different countries: Portugal, England, Italy, and Spain.[7][8] After leaving Madrid in June 2013, Mourinho returned to England to manage Chelsea for a second spell.[9]
Because of his tactical knowledge, charismatic (but also very controversial) personality and what his opponents regard as emphasis on getting results over playing beautiful football, he is often seen, by both admirers and critics, as the successor of Argentine manager Helenio Herrera
Mourinho was born in 1963 to a large middle-class family in Setúbal (a suburb of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area), Portugal, the son of José Manuel Mourinho Félix, who was known by the name Félix Mourinho, and wife Maria Júlia Carrajola dos Santos.[12] His father played football professionally for Os Belenenses and Vitória de Setúbal, earning one cap for Portugal in the course of his career. His mother was a primary school teacher from an affluent background;[13] her uncle funded the construction of the Vitória de Setúbal football stadium. The fall of António de Oliveira Salazar's Estado Novo regime in April 1974, however, led to the family losing all but a single property in nearby Palmela.[14]
From an early age, football was a major part of Mourinho's life. Footballing commitments in Porto and Lisbon meant that Félix was often separated from his son. As a teenager, Mourinho travelled to attend his father's weekend matches and when his father became a coach, Mourinho began observing training sessions and scouting opposing teams.[15] Mourinho wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and joined the Belenenses youth team. Graduating to the senior level, he played at Rio Ave (where his father was coach), Belenenses, and Sesimbra. He lacked the requisite pace and power to become a professional and chose to focus on becoming a football coach instead.[13][16][17]
His mother enrolled him in a business school, Mourinho dropped out on his first day, deciding he would rather focus on sport, and chose to attend the Instituto Superior de Educação Física (ISEF), Technical University of Lisbon, to study sports science.[14] He taught physical education at various schools and after five years, he had earned his diploma, receiving consistently good marks throughout the course.[15] After attending coaching courses held by the English and Scottish Football Associations, former Scotland manager Andy Roxburgh took note of the young Portuguese's drive and attention to detail.[18] Mourinho sought to redefine the role of coach in football by mixing coaching theory with motivational and psychological techniques.[13]
Coaching career
After leaving his job as a school coach, Mourinho looked for a path into professional management in his hometown and became youth team coach at Vitória de Setúbal in the early 1990s. Later he accepted the position of assistant manager at Estrela da Amadora,[18] then was a scout at Ovarense. Then, in 1992, an opportunity arose to work as a translator for a top foreign coach. Bobby Robson had been appointed as the new manager of Lisbon club Sporting CP and needed a local coach to work as his interpreter.[16]Mourinho began discussing tactics and coaching with Robson in his interpreting role.[16] Robson was sacked by team in December 1993. When FC Porto appointed him as their head coach, Mourinho moved with him, continuing to coach and interpret for players at the new club.[18] The Porto team, consisting of players like Ljubinko Drulović, Domingos Paciência, Rui Barros, Jorge Costa and Vítor Baía, went on to dominate Portuguese football the following years. With Robson as head coach and Mourinho as his assistant, Porto reached the 1993–94 UEFA Champions League semi-finals, and won the 1993–94 Taça de Portugal, the 1994–95 and 1995–96 Portuguese championship, and the 1994, 1995 and 1996 Portuguese Super Cup. The latter with a 5–0 victory over arch-rivals Benfica, in what proved to be Robson's last game at Porto before moving to Barcelona, earning Robson the nickname "Bobby Five-O" in Portugal. Such was the impact of Robson and Mourinho on making Porto a lasting team, that the club managed to claim three more consecutive championships after they had left.
After two years at Porto the duo moved again, switching to FC Barcelona in 1996.[19] Mourinho and his family moved to Barcelona and he gradually became a prominent figure of Barcelona's staff by translating at press conferences, planning practice sessions, and helping players through tactical advice and analyses of the opposition. Robson and Mourinho's styles complemented each other: the Englishman favoured an attacking style, while Mourinho covered defensive options, and the Portuguese's love of planning and training combined with Robson's direct man-management. The partnership was fruitful and Barcelona finished the season by winning the European Cup Winners' Cup. Robson moved club the following season but this time Mourinho did not follow as Barcelona were keen to retain him as assistant manager.[18] The two remained good friends and Mourinho later reflected on the effect Robson had had upon him:
One of the most important things I learnt from Bobby Robson is that when you win, you shouldn't assume you are the team, and when you lose, you shouldn't think you are rubbish.[18]He began working with Robson's successor, Louis van Gaal, and he learned much from the Dutchman's conscientious style. Both assistant and head coach combined their studious approach to the game and Barcelona won La Liga twice in Van Gaal's first two years as coach.[18] Van Gaal saw that his number two had the promise to be more than a skilled assistant. He let Mourinho develop his own independent coaching style and entrusted him with the coaching duties of FC Barcelona B.[19] Van Gaal also let Mourinho take charge of the first team (acting as Mourinho's assistant himself) for certain trophies, like the Copa Catalunya, which Mourinho won in 2000.[20]
Managerial career
Benfica
The chance to become a top-tier manager arrived in September 2000 when Mourinho moved up from his role as assistant manager at Lisbon side Benfica to replace manager Jupp Heynckes after the fourth week of the Primeira Liga.[19] The Benfica hierarchy wanted to appoint Jesualdo Ferreira as the new assistant coach, but Mourinho refused and picked CarlosMourinho was highly critical of Ferreira, whom he had first encountered as his teacher at ISEF and later lambasted the veteran coach by stating, "This could be the story of a donkey who worked for 30 years but never became a horse."[23] Only weeks after being given the job at Benfica, Mourinho's mentor, Sir Bobby Robson, offered him the assistant manager's role at Newcastle United. Such was Robson's desperation for Mourinho to join him he offered to step down after two years in charge and hand over the reins to Mourinho. Mourinho turned the offer down and said he knew Robson would never step down at the club he loved.[24]
Mourinho and Mozer proved a popular combination, enjoying a 3–0 win against fierce rivals
Porto
He was then hand-picked in late January 2002 by Porto to replace Octávio Machado. At this time, Porto was in fifth place in the Liga (behind Sporting, Boavista, Leiria and Benfica), had been eliminated from the Portuguese Cup and was in last place in their UEFA Champions League second group stage. Mourinho guided the team to third place that year after a strong 15-game run (W–D–L: 11–2–2) and gave the promise of "making Porto champions next year."He quickly identified several key players whom he saw as the backbone of what he believed would be a perfect Porto team: Vítor Baía, Ricardo Carvalho, Costinha, Deco, Dmitri Alenichev, and Hélder Postiga. He recalled captain Jorge Costa after a six-month loan to Charlton Athletic. The signings from other clubs included Nuno Valente and Derlei from União de Leiria; Paulo Ferreira from Vitória de Setúbal; Pedro Emanuel from Boavista; and Edgaras Jankauskas and Maniche, who both had been out of contract at Benfica.
The following season witnessed further successes: he led Porto to victory in the one-match Portuguese Super Cup, beating Leiria 1–0. They lost, however, the UEFA Super Cup 1–0 to A.C. Milan, with Andriy Shevchenko scoring the solitary goal. The team was dominant in the Primeira Liga and finished the season with a perfect home record, an eight-point advantage, and an unbeaten run that only ended against Gil Vicente; they secured the title five weeks before the end of the season. Porto lost the 2004 Taça de Portugal Final to Benfica in May 2004, but two weeks later, Mourinho won a greater prize: the UEFA Champions League, with a 3–0 win over AS Monaco in Germany. The club had eliminated Manchester United, Olympique Lyonnais, and Deportivo La Coruña and their sole defeat of the competition came against Real Madrid in the group round.
In the first leg between Manchester United and Porto, United manager Sir Alex Ferguson confronted Mourinho after Roy Keane received a red card for stamping on Vítor Baía.[28] In the second leg, Porto were on the verge of an away goals defeat when Costinha scored a goal with only little more than thirty seconds left for the official 90 minutes time, to win the tie and Mourinho celebrated the goal flamboyantly. Mourinho's Porto win over Ferguson's United foreshadowed a move to the Premier League managing Chelsea, where the two men would enjoy a
No comments:
Post a Comment