Lately, the Special One has been mostly noticed for its punchlines. But today, he is a new man.
Since becoming known to the general public, José Mourinho has distinguished himself through his sporting performances (2 Champions Leagues, 2 Europa Leagues, 3 Premier League, 2 Liga Bwin, 2 Serie A, 1 Liga among others), but not only. Renowned for being a loudmouth, the Special One has also made headlines for its sense of repartee. At times, the Portuguese even flirted with the limits, especially when coaching Real Madrid and against Pep Guardiola’s Barca. But today, this entire character from the world of football surprised observers. Asked by theOsservatore RomanoMourinho confided like never before.
“We are paid to win. Athletes, not men, are paid to win. We talk about high performance, and sometimes there are decisions in the management of a team that have something cruel. (…) You pay for mistakes. If I make a mistake, I pay for it by being fired. If a player makes a mistake, he pays for it by not playing in someone else’s place. There’s something cruel about it, but we can’t let the nature of our work overlap with who we are as people.”. To be a better person, a fundamental objective for the Lusitano.
Mourinho wants to win for others
“I’m very clear on that. I try to help others and myself to be better. One thing I have a hard time accepting is the waste of talent, it’s something that after 30 years of football is still hard for me to accept. Sometimes, however, the waste of talent is linked to the life path of certain players, and in this sense we must try to be guides. (…) I perceive my evolution as a person thinking about the fact that for many years I wanted to win for myself, whereas now I am in a moment where I continue to want to win with the same intensity as before , even more, but no longer for me, but for the players who have never won, I want to help them. »
A new, more spiritual Mourinho, who has therefore visibly abandoned the exacerbated individualism of the star system of the football planet to focus on his fellow man. “I think a lot more about the ordinary fan who smiles because his team won, about his week being better because his team won. I’m still a “competition animal”, so to speak, I still want to win as much or more than before, but before I focused on myself. » Finally, Mourinho concluded this confessional interview by evoking a ritual that he will miss enormously the day he will no longer be a coach: the pre-match.
“The journey to a match: I mean leaving the hotel, getting off the bus, arriving at the stadium, the journey to the dressing room, the journey from the dressing room to the pitch before the start of the match, there is a lot of spirituality in all of this. It’s never a routine, no matter how many times you play in the same stadium, and you always do the same course, it’s a moment that has something you can’t see, but can feel a lot . I think that’s enormously beautiful and I think the day I stop coaching, which I hope won’t be soon, might be the thing I’ll miss the most. »
