With the Manchester United boss reportedly falling out with his star player Paul Pogba, Greg Lea picks out Jose's biggest allies and enemies in the game
There are few more divisive figures in football than Jose Mourinho. To his supporters the Portuguese is one of the greatest coaches of all time, a serial winner who has succeeded in four different countries. His detractors, though, will argue that the Manchester United manager’s powers are on the wane and that he’s only able to produce results in the short-term.
“He always needs an enemy to be able to attack or defend his squad,” ex-Inter striker Diego Milito once said of his former boss. But it's his relationship with his own player, Paul Pogba, that's under serious scrutiny right now. So, who are Mourinho’s biggest foes, and who does he get on well with?
Ed Woodward: Foe
Worryingly for United fans, Mourinho and Woodward appear to be at loggerheads right now. Despite handing him a contract extension in January, the Red Devils' executive vice-chairman didn't back his manager's judgement in the summer transfer market, with seemingly well-briefed media reports suggesting that Woodward didn't want to spend large sums on the players Mourinho wanted because of their age and lack of resale value.
On the face of it, the two men should be pulling in the same direction and working towards the same goals. It was telling, though, that Mourinho argued he should be referred to as a ‘head coach’ rather than ‘manager’ earlier this month, and it’s difficult to see how the pair’s differences of opinion can be resolved.
Willian: Friend
One of the players Mourinho wanted to sign this summer was Willian, who had been a key part of his Chelsea team between 2013 and 2015. The Brazilian made 36 appearances as the Blues scooped the Premier League title under Mourinho in 2014/15, and he was one of the few players who maintained his good form when the champions imploded the following campaign.
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“[He] is the best manager I’ve ever worked with,” Willian told ESPN in July. “We have a good relationship, we are friends. Sometimes we talk, we text, we send messages to each other via WhatsApp. He is a great manager, I really enjoyed working with him. I hope I can work with him again someday.”
Arsene Wenger: Foe
Arguably the most fierce managerial feud in Premier League history, Wenger and Mourinho have never had much time for each other. Fundamentally, the two men see football very differently: while the former preaches the importance of style and performance, the latter emphasises results and frequently pours scorn on so-called “poets” and “idealists”.
The rivalry routinely got personal too: Mourinho called the then-Arsenal boss a “voyeur” in 2005 and a “specialist in failure” nine years later. The Portuguese said he hopes he can one day be friends with his great foe following Wenger’s exit from the Emirates in May, but it’s hard to see that ever happening.
Marco Materazzi: Friend
When Mourinho left Inter for Real Madrid after guiding the Nerazzurri to an unprecedented treble in 2010, no one was more upset than Materazzi. A tough-tackling, rugged defender who'd earned a reputation as a hardman throughout his career was spotted on camera bidding his manager a tearful farewell.
“I can tell you that Mourinho and [Marcello] Lippi are the best [coaches in the world], in my opinion,” Materazzi said in 2016. “Not just because of their self-explanatory results, but because I experienced them close up. [Mourinho has] drive, cleverness, knowledge, experience and empathy.”
Mino Raiola: Foe
Raiola isn’t the kind of agent who quietly goes about his business in the background. The outspoken Italian is never shy to put forward his opinion on football matters, as he demonstrated by criticising Manchester United legend Paul Scholes.
Mourinho didn't take kindly to Raiola’s alleged attempts to find a new club for Pogba, one of his most high-profile clients, this summer. The agent’s influence on one of United’s star players is a legitimate concern for the Portuguese, especially as his relationship with Pogba has apparently deteriorated this season. The French midfielder has appeared to question his manager's tactics, been told he won't captain United again and now the pair have had a tense exchange in training. Frosty.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic: Friend
Ibrahimovic, another Raiola client, has always had a good relationship with Mourinho, who brought him to Manchester United on a free transfer in summer 2016. The pair first worked together for a single season at Inter in 2008/09, before the Swedish striker linked up with Pep Guardiola at Barcelona the following campaign. But which of the managerial titans did he prefer?
"Jose Mourinho is Guardiola's opposite,” Ibrahimovic wrote in his autobiography, I Am Zlatan. “If Mourinho brightens up the room, Guardiola pulls down the curtains, and I guess that Guardiola now tried to measure himself with him. Mourinho would become a guy I was basically willing to die for.”
Sergio Ramos: Foe
Things began to unravel for Mourinho at Real Madrid when he dropped Iker Casillas in 2012/13, his third season at the Santiago Bernabeu. A club icon, the long-serving goalkeeper was popular both in the dressing room and on the terraces, and Ramos wasn’t shy in coming forward in support of his team-mate and friend.
The feud split Madrid down the middle, with some players and fans backing the manager and others siding with Casillas and Ramos, the latter of whom has continue to have digs at the Portuguese since his exit.
“Mourinho was just another coach I worked with in my football career… I don't think he has changed my life in football at all,” he said in 2017, unfavourably comparing the Manchester United manager to Zinedine Zidane.
Deco: Friend
A key figure in the Porto team which stunned the continent by winning the Champions League under Mourinho in 2004, Deco has consistently heaped praise on his former manager in recent years. The playmaker played 90 games in two seasons under his compatriot’s tutelage at the Estadio do Dragao, claiming a further four trophies on top of the European Cup.
“Mourinho is the best coach I've worked with," Deco said in 2013. "He convinces you that if you do what he tells you to do, it will bring results – and it does. Working with Mourinho was incredible. I learned so much.”
Given that Conte was chosen as Mourinho’s permanent successor as Chelsea boss in 2016 and immediately restored glory at Stamford Bridge, the two men were never likely to get on. The Manchester United boss took issue with what he considered to be excessive celebrations from the Italian during the visitors’ 4-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge in October of that year, claiming he had been “humiliated” by Conte.
The duo continued to exchange barbs over the next two years, with Mourinho memorably inferring that his Chelsea counterpart behaved like a “clown” on the touchline, and Conte subsequently calling the 55-year-old a “fake” and “little man”.
John Terry: Friend
Mourinho has been most successful as a manager when he's been able to create a siege mentality inside the dressing room. Frank Lampard, Petr Cech and Didier Drogba all featured for the Portuguese in both of his spells at Chelsea, but it was club captain Terry who formed the strongest bond with the man he later described as the “very best [coach] I’ve ever worked with”.
“He knew how to suck every last bit out of everyone. He was on everything. His intensity and attention to detail was incredible,” the defender, who won three Premier League titles, three League Cups and one FA Cup under Mourinho, said last year.
Rafael Benitez: Foe
Mourinho has reserved many of his fiercest insults for Benitez, the man who succeeded him as Inter manager in 2010. The Spaniard took over a side that had just won the Treble, but struggled to build on that triumphant season and was later blasted by Mourinho for “destroy[ing]” his work at San Siro.
The most notable stage of their feud came in England, though, as Mourinho’s Chelsea and Benitez’s Liverpool fought a number of battles in several competitions. Despite sharing similar footballing ideologies, the two men have never seen eye to eye as people.
Aitor Karanka: Friend
Rui Faria left his post as Manchester United assistant manager at the end of last season, announcing his intention to become a head coach in his own right. If he’s able to successfully make the transition, the Portuguese would join the likes of Brendan Rodgers, Andre Villas-Boas and Karanka in having become a manager after working under Mourinho.
The Spaniard, who spent three season alongside the 55-year-old at Real Madrid, praised his former boss ahead of his Middlesbrough’s side’s meeting with Manchester United in 2016.
"It will be nice to see him,” Karanka said. "I have to say thanks to him and to his staff so many times. I am in the Premier League because I learned a lot with them. We are really good friends and have a really good relationship.”
Claudio Ranieri: Foe
Mourinho came out in support of Ranieri when he was fired by Leicester in 2017, turning up at his next press conference with the Italian’s initials printed on his tracksuit. It was, however, hard to avoid the suspicion that the Portuguese was making a point about his own sacking at Chelsea a year earlier, with both men having been dismissed just months after winning the title.
Mourinho certainly hadn’t made a habit of leaping to Ranieri’s defence in previous years. He once labelled his Chelsea predecessor a “loser”, and also mocked his English language skills and age during their time together in Serie A in the late noughties.
Alvaro Arbeloa: Friend
Mourinho didn’t get on with a number of his charges within the Real Madrid dressing room, but Arbeloa was always on his manager’s side – so much that the Portuguese once called the right-back an “exceptional man” and “[one] of the most important players I've worked with”.
Mourinho appreciated the fact that Arbeloa publicly backed him during a dressing room split, as many of the defender’s team-mates lined up against their boss. The former Liverpool man has always reciprocated the now-Manchester United coach’s respect, describing him last year as the “bravest man in football”.
Mourinho and Guardiola once worked together at Barcelona, the former as an assistant to manager Bobby Robson and the latter as captain. The pair routinely shared ideas on the training ground and were pictured hugging one another following the Blaugrana’s 1-0 defeat of PSG in the Cup Winners’ Cup final of 1997.
Fast forward 13 years and the two men found themselves on opposite sides of the Clasico divide, Guardiola as Barcelona boss and Mourinho as Real Madrid manager. The Portuguese had himself applied for the Camp Nou post in 2008, but the Catalan club’s board preferred Guardiola despite his relative lack of experience.
The two coaches – now battling it out for supremacy in Manchester – clashed on several occasions in Spain, most memorably when Guardiola called his rival the “f****** chief, the f****** boss” when it came to off-field mind games.
Greg Lea is a freelance football journalist who's filled in wherever FourFourTwo needs him since 2014. He became a Crystal Palace fan after watching a 1-0 loss to Port Vale in 1998, and once got on the scoresheet in a primary school game against Wilfried Zaha's Whitehorse Manor (an own goal in an 8-0 defeat).
