When Real Madrid first hired Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho in the summer of 2010, team director Emilio Butragueno was unequivocal about the reason why. “We didn’t sign Mourinho to make friends,” he said, “but to win trophies.”
Some coaches can do both; Mourinho has never been one of them. He’s a font of charisma and an endlessly compelling figure, but he is difficult at best and destructive at worst. He is a man who earnestly called himself “The Special One” in a room full of journalists, a man who said legendary midfielder Kevin De Bruyne was “not ready to compete,” a man who has no qualms about executing a celebratory knee slide in a three-piece suit just to show his opponents how jazzed he is to beat them. He’s Richard III…or maybe he’s just Richard Hatch. Either way, Butragueno was right: He is decidedly not here to make friends. He never was.
The trophies, though? He’s always been hungry for those. Few coaches have won more of them than Mourinho has, and he remains the only person on earth to lift every single one of Europe’s major continental cups. (He won the Champions League with Porto and Inter Milan, the Europa League with Porto and Manchester United and the Conference League with Roma.) In that fated stint with Real Madrid, Mourinho lifted three more — the 2011 Copa del Rey, the 2012 La Liga title and the 2012 Supercopa de Espana — and still considered his time there to be something of a failure.
When Real Madrid announced Mourinho’s controversial return this summer, 13 years on from his last stint with the club, that trophy drive was why. Madrid had just closed out a dismal season with no silverware and needed a boost. Mourinho felt certain he could provide it.
