Jose Mourinho labels past job ‘big bulls***’ in new Netflix documentary
Jose Mourinho has labelled one of his past footballing jobs a “big bulls***”, suggesting that it was essentially a cover for a different role.
The new Netflix documentary MOURINHO traces the career of the Portuguese coach, who is one of football’s most-iconic characters ever – a manager who has led the likes of Chelsea, Real Madrid and Manchester United.
Now 63, Mourinho has just begun his second spell as Real Madrid coach, but in the 1990s, he worked for rival club Barcelona.
Mourinho was famously the interpreter of Sir Bobby Robson, who was managing the Catalan side at the time, but now Mourinho has called his own role at Barcelona a “big bulls***”.
In the three-part series MOURINHO, there is archival audio of the late Robson saying: “Jose is a good-looking chap, very shy – a bit nervous perhaps – but at the same time, he had an air of confidence about him.
“He had a very small, minor coaching qualification, but he was bright. And he stood beside me, very often behind me, the best-paid interpreter in the world.”
Mourinho then adds in the present day: “Back then, I was working with Mr Robson. It’s a big bulls***, the translator job. It’s a big bulls***, it’s a big bulls***.”
When pressed on what he means, Mourinho explains: “I was the goalkeeper coach, I was the analyst, I was the scout. Because I studied sports science at university, I could even help in the gym. I was doing everything for the boss, everything for the team.
“If you speak English and nobody else does, that doesn’t mean that you are a translator. It means that you are academically at the superior level.
“But I was not a translator; I was Mr Bobby Robson’s assistant coach. We worked together for one season, then the next season came Mr [Louis] Van Gaal.”
Van Gaal can then be heard saying, “I said to Jose: ‘Maybe you can proceed as my assistant.’ It was a big gamble, because I [didn’t] know him.”
In the series, Mourinho hints that his time as Robson’s interpreter was similar to his days as a ball boy, when his father was a manager. Mourinho says in the documentary that he used his ball-boy shifts to study matches and pass information on to his father.
Mourinho’s time at Barcelona gave way to two coaching jobs in his native Portugal before the third, at Porto, saw him win the Champions League for the first time. He then won back-to-back Premier League titles with Chelsea, plus three domestic cups, before winning a second Champions League trophy at Inter Milan.
What followed was his first stint at Real Madrid, a return to Chelsea, then two more Premier League jobs at Man United and Tottenham. Mourinho then coached Roma, Fenerbahce and Benfica, before returning to Madrid this summer.
In the new series, Mourinho drops the bombshell that he signed on to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson at Man United in 2013, only to go back on his word and re-join Chelsea. Mourinho later took the United job in 2016, staying until 2018.
