José Mourinho’s Roma revolution is a lesson on how to overcome setbacks

Tough critics

His stats make him the fifth most decorated coach in history, with 26 titles, including five European-wide wins and 21 national titles from Portugal, England, Italy, and Spain. He is the only coach to have won all three European competitions: the Champions League, the Europa League, and the Europa Conference League.

He was named FIFA World Coach of the Year in 2010 and Portuguese Coach of the Century by the Portuguese Football Federation in 2015. UEFA also named him among the 10 best coaches in European history.

Mourinho has many other garlands all of his own.

In 2011, British magazine "AskMen" named him as the 25th most popular man and the fifth most popular athlete in its Top 49 Most Influential Men of the Year ranking. He was also named World Food Programme Ambassador Against Hunger in November 2014, to use his overwhelming fame to raise awareness about WFP's work.

Despite all this popularity, there is considerable disagreement between fans and critics in evaluating his career, tactics, and methods. His deliberately provocative approach to press conferences and his mind-games tactics used to distract and undermine opponents make fans of rival teams take against him.

Still, Mourinho's success has paved the way for the rise of a new type of football manager.

He stands out as the first coach in the modern era of the game, with this level of success, to run major European teams without having first had a significant career as a player. He opened the way for others like him to follow, overcoming the cultural resistance of traditional coaches and parts of the media.

An inspiration to many coaches

Italian football manager Maurizio Sarri left his banking career to pursue his passion for football. After embarking on a journey of self-learning and development, he proved himself as one of the most prominent Italian coaches. He managed Napoli, Juventus, and Lazio in Italy and Chelsea in England.

Sarri is known for applying an unprecedented 33 different tactics in one game while coaching Napoli, earning him the nickname "Mister 33". During his career, Sarr overcame many of the hurdles that Mourinho encountered in his own journey, although he was not as controversial.

Mourinho also inspired Portuguese coach André Villas-Boas, who joined his technical staff when he was still under 30 after an injury prevented him from playing.

Many critics dubbed him the "new Mourinho", as he took over as coach of Porto and achieved success with the club, and then moved on to coach Chelsea just like his teacher.

However, his success did not last long. He was sacked from the London team and moved on to coach several teams without much success.

Julian Nagelsmann stopped playing at an early age due to injury. Like Mourinho, he studied sports science. He went on to coach the youth team of the German club Hoffenheim with whom he won the league championship. He was chosen by the club's management to coach their first team at just 28 years old, becoming the youngest coach in Bundesliga history.

Nagelsmann proved himself as one of the most prominent emerging coaches in Germany during his career with Hoffenheim and then Leipzig, prompting the Bavarian giants Bayern Munich, the biggest German team, to sign him.

Despite some success, he was sacked recently, to the surprise of many. Since his departure, Bayern's results have got worse, putting pressure on the men who approved the dismissal.

Mourinho's career has hit trouble, and his approach has, at times, fallen out of fashion. But even then, it is remarkable how many coaches have been hailed as "the new Mourinho", a sign of his influence, unmatched even by Spain's Pep Guardiola.

Interpreter-turned-coach

José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix was born on 26 January 1963 in Portugal. His father was the goalkeeper for Portugal's national team. He wanted his son to follow in his footsteps into professional football, but José's mother, an affluent businesswoman, saw a better future for her son in business or academia.

José failed to achieve either of his parent's aspirations.

Despite signing for a few reputable clubs, he stopped playing under the age of 20, lacking passion and talent for physical activity on the pitch.

He also avoided traditional academia. But he set his sights on coaching football, choosing sports science at the Technical University of Lisbon. José had worked as an assistant to his father, who moved into coaching in retirement, and that is how the younger Mourinho found his talent for training and tactics.

The language of opportunity

José spent five years working as a school coach while waiting for a professional opportunity. It came in 1992. Lisbon's Sporting CP club appointed him as an interpreter for English football manager Bobby Robson.

Robson was impressed by Mourinho's personality, abilities, and fluency in six languages – Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, English and Italian. The following year, Robson brought Mourinho in as an interpreter to coach Porto, Portugal's most famous team. There, Robson's confidence in the savvy and bold interpreter increased.

Arrival in Barcelona and a move to management

When coaching one of Spain's global football giants, Barcelona, from 1996, Robson also brought Mourinho along.

 "Something I like about him is that anything I ask the players, I always feel strongly that he'll tell them exactly what I said, in the same way that I said it," Robson once explained.

The move to the Catalan giant was a major turning point for Mourinho. Robson made him his second assistant and not just his interpreter.

But it was not an easy time for the club or its managers.

Dutch legend Johan Cruyff had just left Barcelona and life as a coach. Robson seemed overwhelmed by the transformation the club was going through and felt that his football philosophy, different to Cruyff's, which had built the club,  was not being accepted. He left after a year.

Details matter

Robson was replaced by another Dutchman, Louis van Gaal, who had won the Champions League with Ajax in 1995. The tough Dutch coach trusted the young Mourinho and asked him to scout competitors for weaknesses and strengths. This would later shape José's career to a major extent.

It gave him his famed eye for detail.

Bulgarian football star Hristo Stoichkov played for Barcelona the year Mourinho arrived, and noticed his thoroughness: "He watches … everything – changing room, bus, hotel. Everything is under control. Everything. That's the reason why he has a tough character. He liked everything to be 100%: good discipline, good organisation."

This set Mourinho apart.

As he said himself: "Barcelona is a club with an incredible philosophy of how to play, work hard and compete," he noted, signalling he learned a lot there.

Mourinho coached Barcelona's reserve team for a few months, while still carrying out multiple duties at the club for three years.

He then returned to his native Portugal, on the lookout for a top coaching job. He turned down an offer from Robson to work with him again as an assistant coach at PSV Eindhoven.

The opportunity finally came in 2000, but it did not last.

Portugal's second biggest club Benfica appointed him to run the first team. But he only lasted three months and 10 games. His departure was not due to poor results but came after new club management pledged in an election campaign to sack Mourinho and appoint another coach he preferred.

To Porto and beyond

By April 2001, Mourinho was coaching the relatively little-known Portuguese club União de Leiria, where he was to prove his skills. Porto appointed him as their coach in January 2002, in the second big turning point of his career.

Mourinho reshaped the team and then won the Portuguese Liga twice in succession, in 2004 and 2005. He won the Uefa Cup in 2003. And then came the biggest prize in world club football: The Champions League in 2004.

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich was seeking glory for the London club Chelsea, which he had recently acquired. He brought Mourinho to the English Premier League, where the Portuguese coach made a big impact, including at the press conference held on his arrival.

He told reporters: "Please don't call me arrogant, but I'm [a] European champion and I think I'm a special one."

From then on, the British press called him 'The Special One', a nickname he retains to this day. He has also been called a genius, a legend, shrewd, vain, and arrogant. His critics sometimes dismiss him as "the interpreter".

He drove Chelsea to win two Premier League titles in a row for the first time in decades and several other domestic titles. He broke several records, some of which are still highly regarded.

Yet the reason for Mourinho's fame is not the titles he amassed. What truly makes him special is that his eye for detail introduced innovations to the game.

He took control of his team's diets, a move that was picked up by Guardiola, who forbids his players from eating pizza.

Mourinho also stood out thanks to his charisma, at the pitchside and with fans. His celebrations are loud and triumphant. He creates distinctive and unconventional relationships with his players, inspiring them to fight for him and the team.

He made sure Chelsea's goalkeeper Petr Čech returned from a skull fracture injury that could have ended the player's career by drawing up a bespoke training and treatment plan.

Mourinho also excelled in creating a special relationship with fans. Chelsea fans adored him so much that the club placed the coat José wore during matches in the club's museum at their request.

Troublemaker

But there is also controversy – especially his constant hostility to referees and rival coaches. He stirs up trouble with opponents, as a pillar of his approach to the game. He believes a football game starts with the press conference that precedes it and ends with the press conference that follows it.

When speaking to reporters, Mourinho courts controversy to deflect pressure off his players. He is adept at mental distraction and psychological warfare. That can make enemies and it can get him into trouble.

Mourinho left Chelsea in September 2007 following a dispute with the club's owner. He joined Inter Milan in June 2008 for two years, winning a historic treble in 2010, victorious in the Champions League, Serie A, and the Coppa Italia.

In the cap between those two jobs, there came the third turning point for his career. He came extremely close to returning to Barcelona. He was up against a rookie coach – Pep Guardiola – who landed the job after the intervention of Johann Cruyff, who said the Spaniard was steeped in Barcelona's traditional philosophy.

It left an indelible mark on Mourinho and set up the feud between him and Barcelona that has persisted throughout his career.

Galactico

In 2010, he joined Real Madrid, the Catalan's arch-rivals, with the club from the Spanish capital keen to end Barcelona's dominance. The press referred to Mourinho using a term usually reserved for star players, calling him a Galactico.

He led Real Madrid for three years. The club's games against Barcelona, known as El Classico took on an extra dimension. They became the biggest club clashes in world football. TV audiences doubled.

Mourinho was relatively successful in taming the Catalan giant. He won the Liga, Copa Del Rey, and Supercopa. But his spell at Real Madrid, especially his last year with the club in 2013, was the fourth major turning point in his career.

His coaching began to decline now that he had reached the top. He started to lose one of his most important qualities: his close and distinctive relationship with his players.

In his memoir, legendary Scottish coach Sir Alex Ferguson, the most decorated coach of all time with 49 titles, says Mourinho's period with Real Madrid was "a historical epic in Spain".

"The collision between Mourinho and Barcelona was captivating for me. Barcelona is at the top of the world, who would risk their name and history to challenge them?" he wrote.

Ferguson says all of Mourinho's achievements are incomparable to the way he took on Barcelona in the club's golden era, as no one else could have taken the challenge on.

Bright star fades

José returned to Chelsea in June 2013 and stayed until December 2015, winning a Premier League title and a League Cup title. He then moved to Manchester United, becoming one of Ferguson's successors.

But his special touch started to fade. He guided United to win the Europa League, League Cup and FA Community Shield, but he could not win the Premier League and was sacked in December 2018.

In a clear sign of his decline, he began to sit far from the field for about a year, even publicly expressing his longing to get back on the field during televised analysis on beIN Sports.

In November 2019, Mourinho's started coaching Tottenham, which was widely seen as a sign of his demise, since the London club was not seen as a title contender. He stayed there until April 2021, when he was sacked again.

This time, it was the first time he left a club without winning anything, a first since he ran big names in the game in 2002. It felt like the beginning of the end.

But he retains retained huge personal popularity, as shown by the ferocity with which he is defended by Mourinhistas during his less successful endeavours, especially with Manchester United and Tottenham.

Roma revival and a new Ceasar

After his time in England, he moved to the Italian capital to run Roma. Critics believed this move would end his career. The club had not won any titles for a long time, grappling with one crisis after the other, including bankruptcy at one point.

But Mourinho silenced all his critics. He won the 2022 Europa Conference League even with a relatively weak team, proving that his passion for football had not abated and that he had not yet lost his charm.

His coaching at Roma showcased the best of his abilities.

He inspired players and brought fans back to the Stadio Olimpico, ending a sharp decline in numbers. He energised the club's youth team, attending their games. Roma fans called him their new Ceasar as he led them to the Europa League final.

His stint at Roma was thought to have been the end of his career, but it is proving to be nothing short of a comeback. Mourinho proved that failure should not be the end, but rather the catalyst to work harder.

That is the most important lesson.