The thrilling victory over Real Madrid that qualified Benfica for the decisive phase of the Champions League brought one of the patriarchs of modern European football back to the sporting headlines: Portuguese coach José Mourinho.
The Lisbon team’s triumph over the billionaire Spanish club was pure Mourinho juice. Benfica “corset” the opponent’s stars, in the words of António Veloso — Mourinho’s colleague at the University of Lisbon, where he currently chairs the scientific council in the area of physical education. “It is not for nothing that Mourinho received the nickname ‘Dark Lord’ in the United Kingdom, for nullifying and annihilating his opponents,” Veloso told Sheet.
In a packed Luz stadium, Benfica kicked 22 balls on goal against a stunned Real Madrid defense. Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, considered one of the best in the world, made seven difficult saves, saving the Spanish squad from an even worse result. The game ended 4-2 for Benfica. The epic included a header from Benfica goalkeeper Trubin in the last minute.
Mourinho, 63, is one of the pioneers of the use of statistics in modern football. According to Veloso, he was obsessed with analyzing opponents since his college days. He traveled to the United States a few times to see how NBA basketball teams used numbers to improve their performances on the court.
“It’s not enough to collect statistics, you need to know how to convert them into information that can be used by players”, says Veloso.
The Portuguese coach became famous for distributing edited videos to his team, with scenes of the opponents they would have to face. When a Mourinho player enters the field, he already knows which way his opponent is dribbling, who tends to miss passes in dangerous areas and where there will be space behind the defenders who rise, among other points that open the way to victory.
In today’s hyper-concentrated football, it is rare for a team outside the top ten to triumph against the giants. Real Madrid, with annual revenue that exceeds €1 billion (R$6.19 billion), is the leader of a top 10 that has six English clubs — which makes the British Premier League the most exciting in the world.
In the ranking prepared by financial consultancy Delloite, Benfica scores in 19th place, with €293 million (R$1.81 billion) in revenue. In European football, the main Portuguese clubs — Benfica, Porto and Sporting — are considered intermediate powers. No Brazilian club appears in the ranking of the 30 richest on the planet.
Mourinho twice won the Champions League, the main club tournament in the world, ahead of teams that were outside the top 10: Porto, in 2004, and Inter Milan, in 2010.
The past decade marked the rivalry between Mourinho and Josep Guardiola, the biggest in recent European football. Ahead of Inter and Real Madrid, the Portuguese coach was one of the only ones to face the best Barcelona of all time — which had Messi, Xavi and Iniesta on the field and Guardiola on the bench.
“There are two different styles of play,” says Veloso. “Guardiola focuses on his own team, arranging players around the ball, retaining possession and creating passing lines. Mourinho is concerned with studying the opponent in depth to nullify their strengths and exploit their weaknesses.”
Mourinho has not coached a “top 10” team since December 2018, when he ended his career at Manchester United, in England. It was in the English Premier League that the Portuguese coach became famous, achieved his greatest triumphs and received his two nicknames, “Dark Lord” and “Special One”.
When he had just arrived in London to manage Chelsea, in 2004, Mourinho held a press conference. A journalist asked how he faced the responsibility of managing one of the richest clubs in Europe from little Portugal, where he had just won the Champions League with Porto.
“Please don’t call me arrogant, but I’m the European champion, and I’m the special one here,” he replied, saying in English: “I am the special one.” He was alluding to the fact that Chelsea hadn’t been English champions for 50 years. With Mourinho on the bench, the London Blues were two-time Premier League champions, breaking records in attack and defense.
For British sports journalist Adam Clery, Mourinho not only won titles but revolutionized English football. “He showed us new ways of playing, in a football that had been stuck in the 4-4-2 tactical scheme since the 1960s,” said Clery, in a video recently recorded for the sports magazine Four Four Two. “Thanks to him we freed ourselves from four-four-two, and the English league is what it is today.”
In addition to his innovative spirit and lack of modesty, Mourinho is known for negotiating his contracts well — always long and with huge termination fines. It is estimated that the Portuguese coach has earned around €100 million (R$619 million) from dismissals alone. Among its recent “victims” were Roma and Fenerbahçe, from Türkiye.
Like many Portuguese coaches, the studious Mourinho combines his activism at the bank with academic activities. He has just been invited to teach at the master’s degree in football at the University of Lisbon, coordinated by António Veloso. Higher education courses for coaches are the secret to the success of Portuguese coaches around the world — no coincidence that they are experts in analyzing opponents.
Rich, two-time European champion and winner of four national leagues (English, Spanish and Italian, as well as Portuguese), Mourinho says that, at his current moment, he intends to live in Lisbon and focus on long-term work at Benfica. Part of the Portuguese, however, wants to see him in the national team, ahead of the best generation in the country’s history.
Behind the scenes at the FPF (Portuguese Football Federation) there is speculation that the invitation will come after this year’s World Cup.
