José Mourinho is the manager of Spanish side Real Madrid. Mourinho is widely regarded as one of the most successful managers in the game. He was brought into the thick of things by his father Félix Mourinho, who was a professional footballer. José wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and played for some of the clubs his father took over as a coach. He soon realised that he would not make it to the top level as a player and instead chose to pursue a career in coaching, also something he followed his father in action. He also studied sport science and taught physical education at schools.
Mourinho started out with lower tied Portugues clubs. When Sir Bobby Robson arrived at Sporting Lisboa as head coach in 1992, Mourinho grabbed his chance to work as an interpreter and coach under Robson. They formed a strong relationship and Mourinho followed Robson to coach Porto and later to Barcelona. When Robson moved on from Barcelona, Mourinho stayed as assistant manager to newly appointed Louis Van Gaal.
After a brief stint as head coach for Benfica, in late 2000, Mourinho became the manager of União de Leiria, which he took to a 5th place finish in the Portugues league in 2001/02. In January 2002 he took over as manager of Porto, where he in 2003 won the Portuguese double and the UEFA Cup. In 2004 they again won the Portuguese league and went on to win the UEFA Champions League.

After Mourinho’s successful time at Porto, clubs like Real Madrid, Liverpool and Chelsea were all interested in his services. Mourinho was initially most interested in Liverpool but when they offered the position to Spaniard Rafa Benitez, he accepted an offer from Chelsea. In Mourinho’s first season at Chelsea they won the Premier League and the League Cup. The following season they defended their Premier League title and then the next season won both the FA Cup and the League Cup. Chelsea set a new record of 64 consecutive home league matches without defeat, surpassing the record set by Liverpool between 1978 and 1981. However, after several disagreements with Chelsea’s owner/chairman Roman Abramovich, Mourinho left the club in September 2007. In June 2008 Mourinho took over as manager of Internazionale Milano. In the first season they won the Serie A title, then in 2009/10 they won their famous treble; Serie A, the Italian Cup and the UEFA Champions League. After this Mourinho made his intensions clear; he wanted to coach Real Madrid. After intense negotiation and a record compensation, Inter released Mourinho from his contract and he joined Real Madrid.