Recently one of the best coaches of all time has been involved in a big scandal due to the defeat of his actual team, Manchester United against Tottenham Hotspur, with an outrageous 0-3 score at the Old Trafford.
When he left in anger the post-game press conference room he demanded respect from the journalists, that gave me the idea of making a series of articles about his amazing career in order to move away from all the sensationalism that is surrounding his name and to remember all the good things and amazing achievements of his successful career.
Let's start!!!
FAMILY
Mourinho was raised in a family where football was very present, his Grandfather was the former president of a Portuguese football club named Vitória de Setúbal and his father, Felix Mourinho, had a long career as a goalkeeper playing in two clubs from 1958 till 1974.
After Felix ended his career as a goalkeeper started working as a coach on the same team he played and used little Jose, who was 15, to help him make reports about their opponents prior the matches.
STUDIES
Mourinho did try to have a career as a player and played in 3 different teams, Belenenses, Amora and Rio Ave, but he stopped pursuing a professional career after realizing he didn't have what it takes to be an elite player.
He started studying a degree in Physical Education with Sports Methodology, after that he did the Uefa football manager course and went back to Portugal in order to train for a few years high school teams until he came back to his home club Vitória de Setúba, where he got the call to work with Sir Bobby Robson with whom he worked as an interpreter and assistant coach in Sporting Lisboa in 1992 and then Oporto in 1994.
SIR ROBSON
Finally Sir Robson was hired to manage Barcelona in 1996 and of course he took with him Mourinho, sadly Robson only lasted one season at Barca and Van Gaal succeeded him but kept Jose as he knew of the prominent abilities the young coach could provide, Mou was in charge of doing the first reports about the upcoming rivals of the Blaugranas.
He stayed at Barca for three seasons until Van Gal left the job at Barca, at that moment he got the chance to be the first coach of a big team for the first time, Benfica offered him the job but he didn't get good results and ended at Union Leira where he managed to finish the league with the modest team at the fourth position of the table.
THE FIRST STEPS
Thanks to that he got the offer that would change his life forever, Oporto hired him as the main coach for the 2002/03 season, he proved there to be a genius strategist, the team won the Portuguese league, the Portuguese, and the Europa League. If that wasn't enough to prove he was a different and special coach, the next season he won again the domestic league and cup in addition to the Uefa Champions League.
These two amazing seasons were the first signals of the prominent career the special one was going to have, in the next article I'll cover the rest of his career until the present day at Manchester United where he is going thru a very difficult situation against the press and many of the Red Devils fans!!!
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