100 Quotes by Jose Mourinho
José Mourinho, a Portuguese football manager, is renowned for his tactical acumen and charismatic leadership on the soccer field. Born in 1963, Mourinho's coaching career has seen him at the helm of some of the world's top football clubs, including Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur. Known as "The Special One," Mourinho's coaching philosophy centers on discipline, strategic play, and his unique ability to motivate players. His tactical innovations have earned him numerous league titles, domestic cups, and international accolades. However, his passionate and often confrontational style has led to both triumphs and controversies. Mourinho's impact extends beyond the pitch; he has shaped modern football management, influencing coaching styles and strategies worldwide. His dynamic personality and remarkable track record have made him one of the most recognizable and debated figures in contemporary football.
Jose Mourinho Quotes
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.
The best way to stop Messi is when you play with 11 men and then you can double mark him, one player to stay on him and the other to help out. If it is 11 against 10 then you have almost no chance of stopping him.
Please don't call me arrogant, but I'm European champion and I think I'm a special one.
I am prepared. The more pressure there is, the stronger I am. In Portugal, we say the bigger the ship, the stronger the storm. Fortunately for me, I have always been in big ships. FC Porto was a very big ship in Portugal, Chelsea was also a big ship in England and Inter was a great ship in Italy. Now I'm at Real Madrid, which is considered the biggest ship on the planet.
You have to work hard AND well. There are a lot of people who work hard but not well.
You win by effort, by commitment, by ambition, by quality, by expressing yourself individually but in the team context.
I hate to speak about individuals. Players don't win you trophies, teams win trophies, squads win trophies.
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 title race is between two horses and a little horse that needs milk and needs to learn how to jump.
It is like having a blanket that is too small for the bed, you pull the blanket up to keep your chest warm, and your feet stick out. I cannot buy a bigger blanket because the supermarket is closed. But the blanket I have is made of cashmere. So it's good.
Look, I'm a coach, I'm not Harry Potter. He is magical, but in reality there is no magic. Magic is fiction and football is real.
Football is a more beautiful game in high definition.
Like me or not, I am the only one who has won the world's three most important leagues. So, maybe instead of the 'Special One', people should start calling me the 'Only One'.
If Messi is the best in the world, it's only because Cristiano is from another planet.
We want to follow a dream, yes it's true, but it's one thing to follow a dream and another to follow an obsession...A dream is more pure than obsession. A dream is about pride.
Sometimes you see beautiful people with no brains. Sometimes you have ugly people who are intelligent, like scientists.
To be the ultimate team, you must use your body and your mind. Draw up on the resources of your teammates. Choose your steps wisely and you will win. Remember, only teams succeed.
If a player is not performing, there are two ways of looking at it. You wait for performance to come, or maybe the moment has arrived where you have to change. I could go either way.
You don't have to love me. You don't even have to like me, but you will respect me.
The reality is he's a specialist because eight years without a piece of silverware - that is failure.
A great pianist doesn't run around the piano or do push ups with his fingers. To be great, he plays the piano. ...being a footballer is not about running, push-ups or physical work generally. The best way to be a great footballer is to play.
If I had wanted to be protected in a quiet job, I could have stayed at Porto. I would have been second, after God, in the eyes of the fans even if I had never won another thing.
Football is a game about feelings and intelligence.
Chelsea are up there with best teams in the world, and let's hope United can join us in quarter-finals.
No club moves me from Chelsea until Chelsea wants me to move because I want to be where I am loved.
When I go to the press conference before the game, in my mind the game has already started...
If you want me to rule out ever being Manchester United manager, I can't. Special clubs need special managers, so in theory it could work.
If Messi is the best on the planet, Ronaldo is the best in the universe.
I studied Italian five hours a day for many months to ensure I could communicate with the players, media and fans. [Claudio] Ranieri had been in England for five years and still struggled to say 'good morning' and 'good afternoon.'
It’s not important how we play. If you have a Ferrari and I have a small car, to beat you in a race I have to break your wheel or put sugar in your tank.
With all the stones being thrown against me you could build a monument!
The moral of the story is not to listen to those who tell you not to play the violin but stick to the tambourine.
In five years I have never had a match where my team has had less possession than the opponents.
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.
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.
One day he (Einstein) said that the only mechanical force more powerful than steam, electricity and atomic energy is will. That Albert guy was not stupid. With will you can achieve things.
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.
You can have the top stars to bring the attention, you can have the best stadium, you can have the best facilities, you can have the most beautiful project in terms of marketing and all this kind of thing. But if you don't win... All the work these people are doing is forgotten.
Ronaldinho is better than Cristiano Ronaldo, but neither are as good as Leo Messi. He holds numerous records, such as the most goals scored in a single La Liga season and the most goals scored in a calendar year. I'm more worried about being a good person than being the best football player in the world. He has everything. We must protect him.
Look at my haircut. I am ready for the war. The objective is to win the Premiership. I don't want to dominate, to finish without defeat, record points or goals or consecutive wins. The Premiership is so difficult you cannot be focused on that. I just think about winning.
The club is much more important than me, the fans are much more important than me so it's not for me. I'm not working for me, I'm working for the club, for the fans. That's the way I look at things.
People don't know about football. They think they know about it but they don't know much.
I don't have to be jealous of Barcelona because they have 100 years of history and have won the European Cup once. I have only been managing for five years and I have the same amount of Champions League trophies to my name.
When the players think you are strong and that you trust them, it helps them to have a good attitude.
If Roman Abramovich helped me out in training we would be bottom of the league and if I had to work in his world of big business, we would be bankrupt!
Fear is not a word in my football documentary.
As we say in Portugal, they brought the bus and they left the bus in front of the goal.
Unhappy is a nice word. (Meaning)
I am Jose Mourinho and I don't change. I arrive with all my qualities and my defects.
Everybody was waiting for Chelsea not to win every game and one day when we lose there will be a holiday in the country. But we are ready for that.
For me pressure is bird flu. I'm serious. I'm feeling a lot of pressure with the problem in Scotland. It's not fun and I'm more scared of it than football. Football is nothing compared with life. For me bird flu is the drama of the last few days. I'll have to buy a mask.
If I am hated at Barcelona, it is their problem but not mine. Fear is not a word in my football dictionary.
But I think it's more normal for my team to have no success than it is to win two consecutive European cups.
Pressure? What pressure? Pressure is poor people in the world trying to feed their families. There is no pressure in football
There is no pressure at the top. The pressure is being second or third.
I asked the players: 'Do you want to enjoy the game? Or do you want to enjoy after the game?' The players told me they wanted to enjoy after the game so I said: 'OK, then we will enjoy after the game'.
You are pushed to behave differently here, you don't really have a choice. If you cheat you have no chance of being admired. Even your own supporters will dislike you. So what do you do? Well, the way is not to be stupid, but not to cheat either. If there is a foul, you have to fall. I call it 'helping the referee to make a decision'. That's not cheating.
Everybody can be smart.
Money does not guarantee success.
A player who dives and wins a penalty in Portugal, or Spain or Italy is considered clever, experienced, cunning, someone who understands the game. In England a player who wins a penalty like that is a cheat.
You have to win and especially, as I have, you have to win a trophy for the first time.
I would rather play with 10 men than wait for a player who is late for the bus.
Football is a game based on emotion and intelligence. Anyone can be clever, the trick is not to think the other guy is stupid.
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.
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.
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.
In my teams, when we win, we all win, and when we lose, I lose.
The world is so competitive, aggressive, consumive, selfish and during the time we spend here we must be all but that.
Everyone has a right to an opinion. I can arrive in England and express my opinion. If criticism were ferocious and without intellectual objectivity they should show me the way to their airport. It is important to have an opinion and not be afraid to express it, knowing there will be criticism.
Especially when you play at home, you need a good atmosphere behind you.
I won't say we have to win. I won't put that pressure. But we can't lose.
I know the questions will be around the money, the amount Chelsea had to spend to bring him here but that's the reality of modern football. Big teams only want big players, big players are in big clubs, big clubs want to keep their big players.
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 think the best place to work in football is England.
He's a specialist in failure. (Meaning)
Look at the way teams play against Arsenal. They don't believe they can win. They don't believe.
Let slip the dogs of champions.
Three years without a Premiership title? I don't think I would still be in a job.
Maybe next season we can race.
If I wanted to have an easy job, working with the big protection of what I have already done before, I would have stayed at Porto - beautiful blue chair, the Uefa Champions League trophy, God, and after God, me.
If at the end of the season I'm leaving the club, you have the right to come to me and say: 'Jose, you are a liar'
If you're not a big club, you choose one competition and you fight in that competition and forget the others. Big clubs - we cannot do this
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.
My history as a manager cannot be compared with Frank Rijkaard's history. He has zero trophies and I have a lot of them.
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.
Brendan's chihuahua doesn't do that. During the week it sleeps, eats and trains a little bit. So I have to say his chihuahua is a privileged one.
My family love living in London. It is a fantastic city and a city such as this deserves to host the Olympic Games.
I must try to hide my emotions. I have to live with both the victory and the defeat.
Without emotional control you cannot play, influence; you cannot react. You have to know what you have to do and not react. You have to be cool.
So I know all about the ups and downs of football, I know that one day I will be sacked.
It is like when you go to war: we have to know how our enemies attack and defend.
Drogba is a fighter. He is the kind of player I would say 'With you I could go to every war.'
He is the best. The best in the world, yes. Probably the best ever. I saw Maradona a couple of times. I never saw Pele. But Cristiano is amazing. This man is the best... Cristiano is a goals machine. He is an incredible player. He is like Zidane, there will never be another Ronaldo.
We are on top at the moment, but not because of the club's financial power. We are in contention for a lot of trophies because of my hard work.
There are only two ways for me to leave Chelsea. One way is in June 2010 when I finish my contract and if the club doesn’t give me a new one. It is the end of my contract and I am out. The second way is for Chelsea to sack me. The way of the manager leaving the club by deciding to walk away, no chance! I will never do this to Chelsea supporters.
When I saw Rijkaard entering the referee's dressing room I couldn't believe it. When Didier Drogba was sent off, I wasn't surprised.
The only thing that we cannot control is our supporters.
I fell a bit in love with Celtic, because the atmosphere was amazing and the crowd was magnificent, the way they behaved with the Porto fans.
I remember the first time I saw him play. It was for a Sporting CP youth team. I told my assistant, 'There goes Van Basten's son.' Ronaldo had great technique. He stood out.
We all want to play great music all the time, but if that is not possible, you have to hit as many right notes as you can.
It gave the title to Manchester City - it's as simple as that.
Wenger has been Arsenal's coach for 15 years but he hasn't won even a Carling Cup for six years. Benitez hasn't won a league title in six years but they continue to keep him as Liverpool's coach. This is not the Italian mentality. To stay here I must continue winning and do well.
But the most important part of everything is to be happy.
I enjoy the work, I enjoy every minute of my professional life.
I think it's clearly the result of something that looks like a campaign.
Dogs bark and the caravan goes by. (Meaning)
I intend to give my best, to improve things and to create the football team in relation to my image and my football philosophy. 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. Please don't call me arrogant, but I'm European champion and I think I'm a special one.
The way I use to develop an aerobic condition is three against three, man to man, in a square 20 metres by 20.
Would you phone the president of Ghana?
Eleven against eleven they never beat us.
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.
When I was at Porto my team also played in the UEFA Cup final against a Scottish side - but it was Celtic. I've never seen such emotional people. It was unbelievable!
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.
If you look at revenge we are still winning three one you know, so I don't think it is a question of revenge, is a question of a personal thing
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 feel I have a lot to learn from English football and I am completely open to good influences in my way of thinking. But I also have things to give them.
The only way to stop Messi is to double mark him. One player to stay on him and the other to help out.
He is someone I respect [Beckham] as a man and as a player. He is the captain of England and has been a European champion. I have never been critical of him and reports implying that are incorrect as I've never made comments about him
I always think there's our age in ID terms but then there's our real age because for me the real age is not the age on your ID. That's just a date when you were born. The real age, the real ID is your body, your brain, your attitude.
For Chelsea, I would turn down every job in the world.
I followed an Italian manager and it cannot be easy when you follow a manager who thinks very differently.
Yes, Manchester United are the best team in England, but you have to ask how good has the Premier League been since I left? If I was at a top club in England I think the title race might have been a lot closer this year.
Four wins in four matches. It could not be better... the world is fantastic.
If Ashley Cole is ready we have 15 players for the final. I'll have to choose between Hilario, who's not bad playing forward or I'll bring in one of the kids.
The dog is in Portugal and the city of London is safe.
Do you have a brother or cousin in Ivory Coast, because I don't have the money to bring you to Porto.
It's a pity we can't play in two or three days as I like to play straight away after a bad game
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.
I want to congratulate again Mike Dean. I think his performance was unbelievable and I think when referees have unbelievable performances, I think it's fair that as managers we give them praise. So fantastic performance.
I think boring is a team that plays at home and can not score a goal.
― Jose Mourinho Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
