Top 40 Jose Mourinho Quotes

Please don’t call me arrogant, but I’m European champion and I think I’m a special one.

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 hate to speak about individuals. Players don’t win you trophies, teams win trophies, squads win trophies.

I prefer to play against the best players and the best teams and the best coaches. Never personal.

Money does not guarantee success.

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 that we cannot control is our supporters.

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.

I need my time to be lonely.

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 only thing I would like is to have more control of the game in terms of possession.

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.

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 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.

I remember playing at Old Trafford, and the way to the dugout was always nice. It was never like in other stadiums.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

I followed an Italian manager and it cannot be easy when you follow a manager who thinks very differently.

I enjoy the work, I enjoy every minute of my professional life.

Well, uh, I don’t know another way than to work at the top level, which is what I do every day.

Look at the way teams play against Arsenal. They don’t believe they can win. They don’t believe.

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.

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 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 think the best place to work in football is England.

For me, your real age is not the age on your ID. That’s just a date when you were born.

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.

Unhappy is a nice word.

I am Jose Mourinho and I don’t change. I arrive with all my qualities and my defects.

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.

You have to win and especially, as I have, you have to win a trophy for the first time.

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.

Everybody can be smart.

Football is a more beautiful game in high definition.

The world is so competitive, aggressive, consumive, selfish and during the time we spend here we must be all but that.

In five years I have never had a match where my team has had less possession than the opponents.

Especially when you play at home, you need a good atmosphere behind you.