Jose Mourinho
association football coach, association football player, diplomat
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All Quotes by Jose Mourinho
“Please don't call me arrogant, but I'm European champion and I think I'm a special one.”
“The world is so competitive, aggressive, consumive, selfish and during the time we spend here we must be all but that.”
“I hate to speak about individuals. Players don't win you trophies, teams win trophies, squads win trophies.”
“Sometimes you see beautiful people with no brains. Sometimes you have ugly people who are intelligent, like scientists.”
“Money does not guarantee success.”
“You have to win and especially, as I have, you have to win a trophy for the first time.”
“I enjoy the work, I enjoy every minute of my professional life.”
“I need my time to be lonely.”
“I don't say we are a defensive team. I say we are a strong team in defensive terms, but at the same time lacking sufficient fluidity in attack because that will take time to come.”
“You see how Spanish, Italians, Portuguese play football. I don't say they are perfect, I say English football has a few things to learn from them in the same way they have a lot of things to learn from English football.”
“The only thing I would like is to have more control of the game in terms of possession.”
“In football, I'm not so old. At 52, maybe I have 20 years in front of me to coach. But I feel myself as... you might say an 'old fox.' Nothing scares me; nothing worries me too much. It looks like nothing new can happen for me.”
“I'm not a defender of old or new football managers. I believe in good ones and bad ones, those that achieve success and those that don't.”
“In five years I have never had a match where my team has had less possession than the opponents.”
“I know one of my best qualities is to read the game for my players, is to read the opponent, is to identify every detail about the opponent.”
“But I think it's more normal for my team to have no success than it is to win two consecutive European cups.”
“So when they have Mourinho and Benitez joining the Premiership they should say it's good for us, maybe these guys have something new to give.”
“Once, players came to football expecting to be wealthy when they retired. Now, they expect to be wealthy before they've played their first game!”
“The team is completely close. Anything you say outside, there is no chance it will go inside. So the team is really strong and compact. We know what we want and how to achieve it on the pitch.”
“I always say that I need competition, and I need competition every week, and in Spain, I was at an amazing club, but I had four matches a year: Barcelona v Real Madrid, Real Madrid v Barcelona, and after that, we'd win 4-0, 5-0, 4-1, 6-1.”
“I was nine or 10 years old and my father was sacked on Christmas Day. He was a manager, the results had not been good, he lost a game on December 22 or 23. On Christmas Day, the telephone rang and he was sacked in the middle of our lunch.”
“So I know all about the ups and downs of football, I know that one day I will be sacked.”
“Football is a more beautiful game in high definition.”
“So if one day the result becomes 3-3, for me it doesn't change my mind, because it's football, it's normal. What is not normal is that we haven't been scoring enough goals playing such good football as we've been playing in the last few weeks.”
“The Porto players were with me for two and a half years, they believed in me, in my methods, in the way we do it. The next day I go and a manager arrives who works completely differently.”
“At the very least we should be given a bit of credit and a little bit of space, and maybe the media should think we could help them discover why English teams do not win European competitions.”
“I have always felt an affinity with Old Trafford; it has hosted some important memories for me in my career, and I have always enjoyed a rapport with the United fans.”
“The only thing that we cannot control is our supporters.”
“Football is a game about feelings and intelligence.”
“The moral of the story is not to listen to those who tell you not to play the violin but stick to the tambourine.”
“I am Jose Mourinho and I don't change. I arrive with all my qualities and my defects.”
“I'm not afraid to lose my job, and when you're not afraid, you don't feel any pressures. You are not too worried; you can express yourself in a different way. It makes you better, I think.”
“Facing the press is not easy, but because you have to go, you have to try to take a lot of positive things for yourself from these face-to-face meetings.”
“Unhappy is a nice word.”
“When I go to the press conference before the game, in my mind the game has already started.”
“For me, your real age is not the age on your ID. That's just a date when you were born.”
“Everybody can be smart.”
“There has been evolution in many different areas - the way I read the game; the way I prepare the game; the way I train; the methodology... I feel better and better. But there is one point where I cannot change: when I face the media, I am never a hypocrite.”
“Arsenal have won that advantage, nobody gave it to them. By playing fantastic football and by winning matches and by winning trophies, they won that respect that the opponent has for them.”
“The negative side of football. The negative side of our society. People sometimes go to football and bring to it the negative aspects of our society.”
“And I think because of the passion of every English player and every English supporter, and every English journalist for the game, most of the game is played with passion, love for football and instinct, but in football you also have to think.”
“I can have everything I love at the same time. I can have my family, I can have my friends, and I can have my quiet life, which I also like. I can have my football, and I can have everything together, and I don't need to give up one to be better than what I am.”
“I feel I have a lot to learn from English football and I am completely open to good influences in my way of thinking football. But I also have things to give them.”
“I prefer to play against the best players and the best teams and the best coaches. Never personal.”
“I give a lot of instruction in training. It's difficult for me to do the same in matches, so I need guys on the pitch to read the game, to understand what we want.”
“Look at the way teams play against Arsenal. They don't believe they can win. They don't believe.”
“When my kids were young, we could move and experience different countries and, in my case, different clubs and different football, but there is a moment when they need some stability.”
“The period before the game can be important to influence opinions, characters, personalities, feelings, and, of course, I use that to touch my players, to touch opponents, to touch supporters.”
“I don't know where football will take me because in football, you never know, but for sure, as a family, our home will be in London.”
“Especially when you play at home, you need a good atmosphere behind you.”
“In football, the only game I know is the 90-minutes game. It's not mind games; I don't try to do that.”
“Well, uh, I don't know another way than to work at the top level, which is what I do every day.”
“The way I use to develop an aerobic condition is three against three, man to man, in a square 20 metres by 20.”
“I remember playing at Old Trafford, and the way to the dugout was always nice. It was never like in other stadiums.”
“In the same way that I had to follow an Italian manager here, I can imagine that it was not easy for an Italian manager to follow me at Porto.”
“When I face the media, maybe I don't feel it now, here with you, because it's a different sort of interview, but when I face the media before or after the game, I feel it as part of the game.”
“I think the best place to work in football is England.”
“I am Jose Mourinho and I don't change. I arrive with all my qualities and my defects.”
“I followed an Italian manager and it cannot be easy when you follow a manager who thinks very differently.”
“When you just work tactically, in pure football sessions, you can see the way they can think football.”
“I was nine or 10 years old and my father was sacked on Christmas Day. He was a manager, the results had not been good, he lost a game on December 22 or 23. On Christmas Day, the telephone rang and he was sacked in the middle of our lunch.”
“I always say that I need competition, and I need competition every week, and in Spain, I was at an amazing club, but I had four matches a year: Barcelona v Real Madrid, Real Madrid v Barcelona, and after that, we'd win 4-0, 5-0, 4-1, 6-1.”
“For me, your real age is not the age on your ID. That's just a date when you were born.”
“Football is a game about feelings and intelligence.”
“Money does not guarantee success.”