How to Win the Champions League: Jose Mourinho focuses on the Portuguese manager’s two Champions League triumphs – in 2004, with Porto, and that 2010 win with Inter.
Modern-day Mourinho has had his man-management sometimes called into question – think Dele Alli at Tottenham and Paul Pogba at Manchester United.
But, as the Portuguese manager happily explains, and Eto’o embodied, Mourinho, circa 2010, was in his perfect phase of extracting the best from his players. It’s a bullish approach that feels a little outdated in the current climate of player power – but, as Eto’o and Mourinho explain, it worked perfectly back then.
“It made me extremely happy that… Mourinho told me he needed me to do something particular,” Eto’o said at the time. “He wanted a very disciplined role and, because I respect him so much, I said, ‘Yes, coach’ and stuck to my task exactly.”
Fifteen years later, in a west London hotel, Mourinho is similarly happy to reflect on his methodology.
“That individual way of communicating, of motivation, is always something very, very important,” he says. “There is no secret. It is just to look at each one of them, to know them, to understand them, and to deal with them as a complete individual. Like you would if you had one son and one daughter. You cannot educate both in the same way because they are different.”
