José Mourinho
José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix is a Portuguese professional football manager and former player, who is currently the head coach of Primeira Liga club Benfica. Nicknamed The Special One, he is one of the most decorated managers of all time. Mourinho has won league championships in four countries, is one of only seven managers to have won the European Cup with two clubs, and is the only manager to have won all three current UEFA club competitions.
After an uneventful career as a midfielder in the Portuguese leagues, Mourinho retired from playing aged 24 and moved into coaching. He was first an interpreter for Bobby Robson at Sporting CP and Porto, before gaining success as an assistant at Barcelona under Robson and his successor, Louis van Gaal. After brief managerial stints at Benfica and União de Leiria, Mourinho returned to Porto in 2002, winning two Primeira Liga titles, the Taça de Portugal, the UEFA Cup and the UEFA Champions League. That success earned him a move to Chelsea in 2004, where he remarked, "I think I'm special one" at his first press conference, leading to British media dubbing him "The Special One". With Chelsea, Mourinho won two Premier League titles, an FA Cup, and two League Cups in three seasons, before departing in 2007 amid reports of disagreements with owner Roman Abramovich.
In 2008, Mourinho joined Italian club Inter Milan. He led them to the Serie A title in his first season, before winning a continental treble — Serie A, the Coppa Italia and the UEFA Champions League — in 2010, a first in history for an Italian club. This made him one of five coaches to have won the European Cup with two clubs, and later that year, he was crowned the inaugural FIFA World Coach of the Year. Mourinho then moved to Real Madrid in Spain, where he won the La Liga title in 2011–12, breaking several domestic records for points, goals scored, and wins in a season. He also became the fifth coach to win league titles in four countries. Mourinho left Real Madrid in 2013 and rejoined Chelsea, where he won another league title and League Cup, but was dismissed in 2015 after a poor run of results.
Mourinho was appointed manager of Manchester United in 2016 and of Tottenham Hotspur in 2019, but both tenures ended acrimoniously. At Manchester United, he won the Community Shield, League Cup and UEFA Europa League in his first season. At Tottenham, he led the team to a League Cup final. He managed Roma from 2021 to 2024, winning the inaugural UEFA Europa Conference League in his first season. This was Roma's first European title and their first trophy since 2008. The achievement made Mourinho the first manager to win a major European competition with four different clubs and the third to win all UEFA club competitions. He joined Turkish Süper Lig club Fenerbahçe in July 2024, but was sacked in August 2025 after failing to qualify for the Champions League.
Mourinho was named Portuguese Coach of the Century by the Portuguese Football Federation in 2015. Due to his tactical knowledge, charismatic and controversial personality, and a reputation for prioritising results over attractive football, he has drawn comparisons — from both admirers and critics — with Argentine manager Helenio Herrera.
Early life and education
Mourinho was born in 1963 into a large middle-class family in Setúbal, Portugal, as the son of goalkeeper José Manuel Mourinho Félix, who was known by the name Félix Mourinho, and primary school teacher Maria Júlia Carrajola dos Santos. His father played football professionally for Vitória de Setúbal and Belenenses, earning one cap for Portugal in 1972, and later worked as a football manager and the club director of Vitória de Setúbal. His mother was raised by her uncle Mário Lêdo, who came to control the Setúbal sardine canning industry under António de Oliveira Salazar's Estado Novo and funded the construction of Vitória's Estádio do Bonfim in 1953–1961. Following the regime's downfall in the Carnation Revolution, Lêdo's assets were nationalised during the short-lived Ongoing Revolutionary Process in 1975, but he kept a mansion in near Palmela, where Mourinho grew up with his parents.Education
Mourinho failed in the subject of mathematics during the final year of high school, and this prevented him from finishing high school in time to enrol at the physical education college as was his wish. After finishing high school in the special examination period of September, his mother enrolled him in a private business school because there were no vacant seats for him in the physical education college and his mother believed business school would bring him to a more successful career path. Mourinho dropped out of business school on his first day, deciding he would rather focus on sport, and chose to attend the Instituto Superior de Educação Física of the Technical University of Lisbon to study physical education. He was taught there by his mentor Manuel Sérgio, the ex-chairman and deputy director of Belenenses, whose humanist approach to kinesiology he later cited as formative. After Mourinho concluded his education in ISEF, he attended coaching courses held by the English and Scottish Football Associations. In this period of his life, former Scotland manager Andy Roxburgh took note of the young Portuguese's drive and attention to detail. Mourinho sought to redefine the role of coach in football by mixing coaching theory with motivational and psychological techniques.Playing career
Mourinho wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and joined the Belenenses youth team. Graduating to the senior level, he left the club in 1980 to sign for Rio Ave, where he played for the reserve team, and in 1981, was joined by his father, who was named first team manager. There, he struck up a prolific partnership with veteran striker Mário Reis. According to former teammate Baltemar Brito, the duo scored around 100 goals, with Mourinho netting forty-seven times. In addition to playing for the reserves, Mourinho was usually tasked with scouting other teams for his father. He was rarely selected by his father, but he made his debut for the club in the third round of the Taça de Portugal, in a 2–1 extra time win over Salgueiros. On the final day of the campaign against champions-elect Sporting CP, a defender was injured in the pre-match warm up, so he was told to get changed. Club president José Maria Pinho, fearing the threat of nepotism, overruled the decision to do so; the incident saw the pair leave to join Belenenses in the summer. Mourinho mostly spent the season playing for the reserve team, and he played for the first team in the second round of the Taça de Portugal against Clube Desportivo de Vila Franca, an amateur club from Vila Franca do Campo, São Miguel Island, Azores. With Belenenses 8–0 up at half-time, Mourinho came on as a second-half substitute and scored a hat-trick as the team won 17–0, which remains the club's biggest ever victory in the tournament. When his father returned to Rio Ave, Mourinho did not go with him and continued to play in the lower levels of the Portuguese football league system, first with Sesimbra, and then for Comércio e Indústria, where he finished his career. At the latter club, he was captain of the team and would save the life of a teammate who had gotten trapped in a car that had caught fire. Mourinho decided that he lacked the requisite pace and power to become a professional and chose to focus on becoming a football coach instead.Coaching career
After leaving his job as a physical education school teacher, Mourinho looked for a path into professional football 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, 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 an English-speaking local coach to work as his interpreter. His presentation was on 7 July, alongside president Sousa Cintra, manager Robson and Manuel Fernandes.Mourinho began discussing tactics and coaching with Robson in his interpreting role. Robson was sacked by the club in December 1993. When Porto appointed him as their head coach, Mourinho moved with him, continuing to coach and interpret for players at the new club. The Porto team, consisting of players like Ljubinko Drulović, Domingos, 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, earning Robson the nickname "Bobby Five-O" in Portugal.
After two years at Porto, the duo moved again, joining Barcelona in 1996. Mourinho gradually became a prominent figure of the club'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 Barcelona attack was led by a prime Ronaldo – whom Mourinho regards as the best player post-Diego Maradona. The partnership was fruitful and Barcelona finished the season by winning the European Cup Winners' Cup, the Copa del Rey and Supercopa de España. Robson moved clubs the following season but this time Mourinho did not follow, as Barcelona were keen to retain him as assistant manager. The two remained good friends and Mourinho later reflected on the effect Robson had had upon him:
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. 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 Barcelona B. Van Gaal also let Mourinho take charge of the first team for certain trophies, like the Copa Catalunya, which Barcelona won in 2000.