Tottenham Hotspur manager Jose Mourinho believes he still has “15 to 20 years” left in his career, meaning he would still be managing into his 70s.
Mourinho, 57, is one of the most successful managers of all-time, winning multiple trophies in several countries, at Porto in Portugal, Chelsea in England, Inter Milan in Italy and Real Madrid in Spain.
His latest challenge has taken him to Spurs, where he is tasked with turning the north London club from Champions League finalists and Premier League challengers into trophy winners, and he maintains he has no interest in retiring soon.
“There is a difference between success and a successful career,” Mourinho said. “I always believe that there is a huge difference. Success is a moment. Success can be related with your talent, but can be just the fact you are in a certain place in the right moment, in the right time.
“Another thing is a successful career, which is based on year after year after year, I always wanted that kind of career. It’s part of my DNA. I know that people probably don’t think this about myself but I consider myself a very humble person, I always try to learn, I always try to be better and this is a kind of job where experience only can make us better. I really believe today I’m much better than I was 10 or 20 years ago.
“If I love what I do, if I feel fresh, it’s motivation, it’s part of my DNA, if I change probably a little bit of my profile – and at this moment I think much more about others than myself – I always like to take players into a different dimension.
“I’m a 57-year-old, very young in relation to my job, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I have 10-15 years ahead of me.”
Sir Alex Ferguson, often considered the greatest manager to have coached, retired as manager of Manchester United, where he won 38 trophies in 26 years, at the age of 71. If Mourinho was to manage for 15 more years it would mean he outlasted Ferguson, his great rival for many years while he became a serial trophy winner at Chelsea during his first spell there in the mid 2000s.
“I just try to enjoy my life and to enjoy my life is also to have the privilege of a job which is a passion, a hobby if you want, a full-time hobby. It’s my world, the world where I was born, it’s the world that I belong,” Mourinho explained.
“Everybody saying my career is long, which is true, but I don’t see the end. I feel exactly the same passion, the same desire to learn every day. I think it’s just a pleasure. My white hair for sure has nothing to do with a stressful job!”
Reflecting on his long career as a manager, which started two decades ago in his home country Portugal, at Web Summit, the world’s largest annual tech conference, Mourinho said that his greatest legacy is that he changed the idea that young people who love football but were not successful players could not become great managers. Mourinho worked closely with Bobby Robson, first as an interpreter at Sporting and Porto, then as his assistant at Barcelona. He was also assistant there to Louis van Gaal.
“It was a period completely different to today,” Mourinho said. “Today people believe in different ways to become a football manager. There are different ways to arrive there, 20-30 years ago the biggest barrier was the fact people were totally focussed on former players and forgetting that with the evolution, with times, people studying and following an academic career and mixing an academic career with some football experiences even if not at the top level as a player. The biggest barrier was to break that difficult wall of people believing in a different profile.
“Honestly, I think it’s quite a legacy that I leave behind, the fact that today any kid that loves football and is not hugely talented to become a top football player, any student who decides to go in another direction and goes to sports science, to football methodology and follows an academic career in the search of scientific knowledge can be as good or even better than others. That was the barrier I had, nowadays people don’t have anymore.”
He added: “When I started my career in my country, my pride was to do or to help others to do – a club, a country – what we all did in 2003-04, which was to get to the top of world football, because European football is basically world football, with a Portuguese team, full of Portuguese players, and doing something that is so difficult to do, that since 2004 no other Portuguese team has done.
“For me it was just a ‘click’ in my career. Job done in my country, done in a historical way. After that it was time to be Portuguese. To be adventurous, to take risks, don’t be afraid to go against the odds, and go to every top country in the top of football, England, Spain, Italy, and to try to make it.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/37v40Bh
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