How Big Mal helped Mourinho become a managerial legend
FORMER CITY MANAGER WAS KEY IN MAKING JOSE THE BOSS HE IS TODAY
SETUBAL, 1986. A spindly 24-yearold with a black bouffant is furiously taking notes on the sidelines while 500 supporters cheer every move at Vitoria Setubal’s open training session.
Shadowing his father, Felix, in the morning sun, this was standard work experience for Jose Mourinho, the son of a former Portugal international and a well-respected coach.
At the time, the Portuguese was one of the first pupils to study the game at university, using the VCR to analyse games long before it became fashionable.
Although some of his older colleagues at the Instituto Superior de Educacao Fisica in Lisbon had more successful playing careers, few had the coaching head start Mourinho enjoyed.
From acting as a ballboy as a four-year-old to compiling scouting dossiers as a teenager, Mourinho was never far from his father’s shadow on the training field.
And Roger Spry, who was employed as a conditioning coach at Setubal at the time, remembers an intern like no other.
“His father worked at the club as a goalkeeping coach and he used to come and watch them training,” the 66-year-old told M.E.N. Sport.
“I remember saying: ‘Instead of him coming to watch, why doesn’t he come and join in and help us?’
“He would watch us every day after university and make notes and speak to people. In those early days, you could see he was very, very studious.
“He was always interested in more efficient ways of training.”
Spry was a trailblazer for English coaches at the time, having learnt his trade in South America where he was heavily influenced by capoeira, a ‘fight-dance’ martial art.
Fluent in Portuguese, which gave him a more ‘spiritual’ connection with the players and coaching staff, Spry was not just a humble fitness coach.
In his role as conditioning coach, the Staffordshire man worked on the players’ rehabilitation, regeneration and technical skills before they were handed over to the head coach for tactical drills.
There was no aimless running and every session was centered around the ball, something Mourinho would later integrate into his own methodology.
It is hardly a surprise then that Spry has worked with dozens of high-profile managers around the world, including Arsene Wenger, Sir Bobby Robson and Queiroz.
But it is his time in Setubal with Malcolm Allison, one of football’s great characters with his fedora and cigar, that he remembers most fondly.
The former City manager’s influence on Mourinho’s coaching journey is rarely mentioned, but Spry believes it was crucial in those early years at Setubal.
“Malcolm Allison was very different from conventional coaches,” he recalls. “He was doing things 35 years ago that coaches now get credited for being evolutionary.
“But he [Mourinho] didn’t realise Malcolm was so influential until much later in his career. I can see little mannerisms, things he does, that are very similar to Malcolm’s.
“Malcolm’s influence was very, very subliminal but very, very profound.”
Mourinho’s lack of a notable playing career did not hinder his progress in his future role as Sir Carlos Roger Spry Bobby Robson’s translator and sounding board at Sporting Lisbon, Porto and Barcelona. But Spry, who also worked with Mourinho at Sporting, recalls the Portuguese being fixated on Ruud Gullit and the misguided notion that ‘good players make good managers.’ All these years later, the pair remain in touch and Mourinho was ‘very, very supportive’ when he spent time with Spry after the death of his beloved wife, Elizabeth, in 2014. Clearly, that mutual respect remains and after winning his first major trophy at United last Sunday as they won the EFL Cup final, Spry is backing Mourinho to be a big success at Old Trafford. “The thing we’re talking about is evolution,” he said. “Mourinho 10 years ago isn’t the Mourinho of tomorrow. “I think he’ll never be satisfied and I think that’s a good thing. He’s always looking at more efficient ways of playing and resting, and more efficient nutrition. “People who are satisfied start to decay.”