José Mourinho Trivia: 45 interesting facts about the famous football manager !

José Mourinho is is a Portuguese professional football manager and former football player. He is the manager of Premier League club Manchester United.

Discover more facts about him, here!

1. José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix was born 26 January 1963 in Setúbal, Portugal.

2. He is the son of José Manuel Mourinho Félix, who was known by the name Félix Mourinho, and wife Maria Júlia Carrajola dos Santos.

3. His father played football professionally for Os Belenenses and Vitória de Setúbal, earning one cap for Portugal in the course of his career.

4. His mother was a primary school teacher from an affluent background.

5. Her uncle funded the construction of the Vitória de Setúbal football stadium.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. Mourinho wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and joined the Belenenses youth team.

10. Graduating to the senior level, he played at Rio Ave (where his father was coach), Belenenses, and Sesimbra.

11. He lacked the requisite pace and power to become a professional and chose to focus on becoming a football coach instead.

12. His mother enrolled him in a business school, but 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.

13. He taught physical education at various schools and after five years, he had earned his diploma, receiving consistently good marks throughout the course.

14. 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.

15. Mourinho sought to redefine the role of coach in football by mixing coaching theory with motivational and psychological techniques.

16. He is regarded by a number of players, coaches, and commentators as one of the greatest and most successful managers in the world.

17. In 2015 Mourinho was named the best Portuguese coach of the century by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF).

18. Mourinho began his involvement in professional football as a player in the Portuguese Second Division.

19. In Lisbon, he worked as a physical education teacher and had spells working as a youth team coach, a scout, and an assistant manager.

20. 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.

21. Mourinho impressed with brief but successful managerial periods at Benfica and União de Leiria, taking the latter to their highest ever league finish.

22. He returned to Porto in early 2002 as head coach, winning the Primeira Liga, Taça de Portugal, and UEFA Cup in 2003.

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. In 2008, Mourinho moved to Serie A club Inter Milan.

27. Within three months he had won his first Italian honour, the Supercoppa Italiana, and completed the season by winning the Serie A title.

28. 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.

29. He is one of only five coaches to have won the European Cup with two different teams, along with Ernst Happel, Ottmar Hitzfeld, Jupp Heynckes and Carlo Ancelotti.

30. He won the first ever FIFA World Coach of the Year Award in 2010.

31. He then signed with Real Madrid in 2010, winning the Copa del Rey in his first season.

32. 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.

33. After leaving Madrid in June 2013, Mourinho returned to England to manage Chelsea for a second spell, during which they won another league championship, but was sacked on 17 December 2015, after a poor run of results left Chelsea just outside the relegation zone.

34. Following several months out of the game after losing his job at Chelsea for the second time, Mourinho was confirmed as the new manager of Manchester United on 27 May 2016.

35. 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.

36. Mourinho met his wife Matilde “Tami” Faria, born in Angola, when they were teenagers in Setúbal, Portugal, and the couple married in 1989.

37. Their first child, daughter Matilde, was born in 1996 and they had their first son, José Mário, Jr. (who plays football for Fulham F.C. youth team), four years later.

38. Mourinho, whilst dedicated to football, describes his family as the centre of his life and has noted that the “most important thing is my family and being a good father.”

39. He was selected as the New Statesman Man of the Year 2005 and was described as a man devoted to both his family and his work.

40. At the end of 2011, Jose Mourinho was named ‘Rockstar of the Year’ by the Spanish edition of Rolling Stone magazine and featured on the front cover of their December edition.

41. Mourinho tasted defeat outside football in 2004. A book titled Jose Mourinho – Made in Portugal: The Official Biography by Portuguese journalist Louis Lourenco, is a best-seller in the country, despite the Portugese manager’s attempts to stop it from being published in the first place.

42. The book portrayed Mourinho’s family and their fear towards him.

43. He speaks Portuguese, English, Spanish, Catalan, Italian and French. He has also hit out at people who still call him a translator.

44. In 2005, Mourinho donated a jacket to be auctioned to help raise money for Tsunami Relief and other charities. Organiser Marc Thompson revealed that one bidder paid €25,800 for Mourinho’s coat at the fundraiser held at Stamford Bridge. The auction of Mourinho’s ‘lucky’ jacket played a part in raising around £545,000 for the cause.

45. In 2007, Mourinho was issued a police caution after allegedly refusing to allow police to quarantine his pet dog, Leya. Having rushed home from an awards ceremony following a tip-off from his wife, the then-Chelsea coach freed the animal from the hands of the health officials and encouraged it to run off down the street, according to eyewitnesses.It is understood the official wanted to quarantine the dog, believing it had been taken abroad and then brought back to Britain without vaccinations. Mourinho received a caution for obstructing the authorities from doing their job.