Robaird O’Cearbhaill
Hong Kong Correspondent
There are the most famous, successful, football, coach managers and but some stand out even more. Like Portugal’s Jose Mourinho, who repeatedly brought second level teams top and quickly. He achieved national and international wins in top championships where no experts originally expected such high success.
Mourinho is a remarkable football spokesman, and, highly unusual among coaches, has wit and humor.
Unusually, being the interpreter to an English team manager in Portugal led him towards coaching. Mourinho took chances with losing, or used-to-be leading teams, whom he either made first time champions or brought back to championships.
Very much outsiders at the start, his Inter Milan, Porto UEFA Championships were outstanding for two reasons. Porto was the only team, not from the five countries’ top football divisions, to win the highest European trophy. Inter Milan had not done that for 45 years.
According to him, his football technical analytical skills led to his success, and secondly his family and thirdly outside of work, his Catholic Faith.
Talking to the Daily Telegraph in an interview, Mourinho revealed the skills and methods that make a team successful.
“Now I coach the best players in the world, and the most important thing is not that you are prepared from the technical point of view; the most important thing is the relationship you establish with the person.”
He added: “Of course you need the knowledge, the capacity to analyze things.” The team, Mourinho said, is more important than the individual. “But the center of everything is the relationship, and empathy, not only with the individual but in the team. And to have that empathy in the team we all must give up something,” he said.
“It’s not about establishing the perfect relation between me and you; it’s about establishing the perfect relation to the group, because the group wins things; it’s not the individual who wins things.”
Mourinho praised team spirit but said individual talent was most important for a player.
Overall he’s confident in his work and life.
“Nothing scares me, nothing worries me too much.”
On faith, Mourinho is categorical: “I believe totally, clearly,” he told the Telegraph. “Every day I pray, every day I speak with Him. I don’t go to the church every day, not even every week. I go when I feel I need to. And when I’m in Portugal, I always go.”
He said he prays for his family, children, wife, parents, for happiness and a good family life. “But I can say the reality is I never go to the church to speak with Him about football. Never!”
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