José Mourinho life and biography

José Mário dos Santos Félix Mourinho (born 26 January 1963 in Setúbal, Portugal), is a Portuguese football manager. He is the current manager of Italian Serie A team Internazionale. He has the nickname "The Special One", a self-proclaimed title which was later taken up by the British media.

The son of Portuguese goalkeeper José Félix Mourinho, Mourinho started out as a player but he was dissatisfied with his lack of skill and 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, Mourinho learnt much from the veteran coach and worked with him at Sporting Lisbon, Porto in Portugal, before following him to Spanish club Barcelona.

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, and soon became a force to be reckoned with, winning the Portuguese Liga, Cup of Portugal and UEFA Cup in 2003. Greater success followed in 2004 as 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, among other domestic honours. 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, well regarded by both his peers and the press. Additionally, he was named the world's best football manager by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) for both the 2004–05 and 2005–06 seasons.

After a fall-out with the Chelsea hierarchy, he moved to Italy's Serie A, signing a three-year contract with Internazionale in mid-2008. 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. He then followed that up the following year 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.

On the 6th of April 2010, José Mourinho became the first manager in history to take three different teams to the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League (this record was equalled by Bayern Munich manager Louis van Gaal a day later) after his Internazionale managed to overcome CSKA Moscow 0–1 in Russia in the second leg of their quarter-final tie, which ended 2–0 on aggregate. Wesley Sneijder's goal in the sixth minute proved the difference in a match played in laid-back style. This marked the first time in seven years that Internazionale managed to make it to the semi-finals of the competition. On April 13th, Internazionale continued its good season, having managed to qualify for the Coppa Italia final, for the first time under Mourinho, by beating Fiorentina 1–0 away (2–0 on aggregate). On April 28th 2010, José Mourinho reached the UEFA Champions League Final for the second time in his career after Internazionale beat current holders Barcelona 3-2 on aggregate, after losing 1-0 on the night (which Mourinho called "the most beautiful defeat of my life") and brought Internazionale back into a UEFA Champions League Final 38 years after their last, where they were defeated by AFC Ajax.

On May 2, after a 2-0 away win at Rome against Lazio, Inter almost secured the Serie A title. On May 5 2010, the team won the Coppa Italia, defeating AS Roma 1-0, and on the 16 May 2010 Inter beat Siena 1-0 to secure the domestic double. On May 22, 2010, Inter won the UEFA Champions League beating Bayern Munich 2-0, and in doing so Inter became the first Italian club to complete The Treble and Mourinho personally celebrated the second "treble win" in his managerial career and second Champions League win. The day after having won the UEFA Champions League, Mourinho claimed that he was "sad, as almost for sure it's my last game with Inter". He then added that "if you don't coach Real Madrid then you will always have a gap in your career".

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