José Mourinho

José Mourinho

Mourinho in August 2010
Personal information
Full name	José Mário dos Santos Félix Mourinho
Date of birth	26 January 1963 (age 48)
Place of birth	Setúbal, Portugal
Height	1.74 m (5 ft 9 in)
Playing position	Midfielder
Club information
Current club	Real Madrid (manager)

José Mourinho

José Mário dos Santos Félix Mourinho (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒuˈzɛ moˈɾiɲu]; born 26 January 1963 in Setúbal) is a Portuguese football manager and the current manager of Real Madrid. He is commonly known as "The Special One". Mourinho is regarded by some players, coaches and critics as the best ever coach in football.

Mourinho started out as a player but he was unable to forge a meaningful career in the game and eventually switched to management. After spells working as an assistant manager and a youth team coach in the early 1990s, he became an interpreter for Sir Bobby Robson. There he worked with him at Sporting Clube de Portugal and Porto in Portugal, before following him to Spanish club Barcelona. He remained in the Catalonian club after Robson's departure and worked with the successor, Louis van Gaal.

He began focusing on coaching and impressed with brief but successful managerial periods at Benfica and União de Leiria. He returned to Porto in 2002, this time as head coach, winning the Primeira Liga, Taça de Portugal, and UEFA Cup in 2003. In 2004 Mourinho guided the team to the top of the league for a second time and won the highest honour in European club football, the UEFA Champions League.

Mourinho moved to Chelsea the following year and won two consecutive Premier League titles in 2005 and 2006. He often courted controversy for his outspokenness, but his victories at Chelsea and Porto established him as one of the world's top football managers.

In mid-2008 he moved to Italy's Serie A, signing a three-year contract with Internazionale. Within three months he had won his first Italian honour, the Supercoppa Italiana, and completed his first season in Italy by winning the Serie A league title. Mourinho followed on from that the next season by winning the first treble in Italian history, the Serie A league title, Coppa Italia, and the UEFA Champions League, thus becoming the third manager in football history to win two UEFA Champions League with two different teams, after Ernst Happel and Ottmar Hitzfeld. Due to these achievements he won the first ever FIFA Ballon d'Or Best Coach Award in 2010.

On 28 May 2010, his appointment as head coach at Real Madrid was confirmed, signing a four-year contract. His first honour with the team was winning the 2011 Copa del Rey Final, the first time Madrid had won the competition since 1993.

Source: Wikipedia