Mourinho’s giant challenge

three football clubs in the world, no doubt about it, but the football club is one thing and the team’s credentials going into a competition are another thing entirely.

“We have a giant on our chest, which is really heavy, but we don’t compare our potential to the biggest clubs in Europe right now.

“Because Manchester United is a real giant, it doesn’t matter if the club is somewhat far away from that level for three, four, five or 10 years. It doesn’t matter, the club will always be a giant. But our job is to try to bring the football team back to that stature. That’s really difficult these days.”

One of the reasons for that difficulty, Mourinho claims, is the new economic power of clubs such as neighbours Manchester City, his former club Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain, which makes the task of trying to restore United to the glories enjoyed under Sir Alex Ferguson, below, more complicated.

“Before, the giants were the powerful clubs economically,” he said. “Now there are small clubs in terms of prestige and history, who are giants economically. That changes absolutely everything.

“I want the team to be on a par with the club’s history, which is something I’ve been lucky enough to feel at every club – there was the same kind of feeling when I was at Inter Milan and at Real Madrid. We are going to do that, step by step. Last season we won trophies. The next step is to finish in the top two of your Champions League group. If you can qualify for the last 16 then anything can happen. “Playing against the European champions in the Super Cup is like we’re back at the theatre, back at that level. “We’ll improve the team and try to be at that level, to be constantly improving. And we’re going to reach that level as a football team in the next couple of years.” If United do that, there seems little doubt Mourinho – who has never stayed at a club longer than three years – will be extending his contract at Old Trafford that has two seasons to run.